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ECHOES 



Half a Century 



POEMS 



WILLIAM PITT PALMER 



*• All human beings, not utterly savage, long for sonxe information about past 
times, and are delighted with narratives which present pictures to the eye of the 
mind."-MACAULAY. Lays of Ancient Rome. '\ 






NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

1 82 EiFTH Avenue 

1880 



COPYRIGHT BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
1880 






TO 
MARK HOPKINS, D.D., 

THE REVERED TEACHER AND LIFE-LONG FRIEND, 

FOR HIS EARNEST ENCOURAGEMENT OF THE AUTHOr'S PEN, 

AND FOR HIS REPEATED WISH 

TO SEE ITS PRODUCTS IN A PRINTED VOLUME, 

THIS LITTLE BOOK 

IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 

BV THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 

The author of the following verses frankly owns 
that he once indulged the hope of seeing them 
gathered from the various periodicals in which they 
originally appeared, and issued in book form ; but 
for a long time past, that pleasing vision had been 
dispelled by the stern realities of later life. He 
solaced himself for its loss, however, with the reflec- 
tion that literary fame, like all other, is only for the 
favored few ; and even those with the highest en- 
dowments have been so anticipated by their prede- 
cessors, that they can expect to add but little that 
is rare or memorable to the vast treasury of orig- 
inal thought. Humbly accepting his just place 
among the innumerable inheritors of oblivion, he 
had ceased to remember the foundlings of his fancy, 
when the fond partiality of his kindred took in 
hand the task of rescuing them from their long ob- 
scurity, and of soliciting for their reunion such 
chance for further life, as their collected vitality 
might seem to warrant. He has called them echoes 
— audible visitants from the past — yet each v-^ith its 



VI PREFACE. 

own individuality. Should their mingled strain of 
grave and gay seem unnatural, the author begs to 
remind the reader that in the music of humanity 
the minor key is as often heard as its more joyous 
fellows. He gave voice, for the most part, to the 
originals of these echoes while toiling in the great 
city to which fortune had directed his unwilling 
steps, far from those rural felicities so vividly re- 
membered, so inconsolably regretted, by the rustic 
exile to the strange artificialities of urban life. 
Should these reiterated regrets appear selfish and 
unmanly, he asks the critic to consider the depth of 
first impressions, the force of early habit and asso- 
ciation, and the fact that there are creatures of 
the wild, utterly untamable by all the kindnesses of 
city or country. In justice to his honored publish- 
ers, he assumes the entire responsibility for reviving 
the awful echoes of the recent conflict. In them- 
selves, these are now of little consequence, save as 
the current expressions of a very earnest and 
anxious patriotism ; and, in that view, may prove of 
interest to some future enquirer into the motives 
and passions of the late rebellion. Macaulay did 
not disdain to cull a wayside weed, even for history. 
In conclusion, he truly avers that neither during 
nor since their frenzied enterprise did he entertain 
any but the kindest feelings toward all his Southern 
brethren ; save only the guilty few, who would rule 
or ruin the republic which had been founded by 
Washington and his immortal compeers. 



CONTENTS. 



THE CLERK S DREAM 

PASS ON, RELENTLESS WORLD . 

love's SECOND-SIGHT . 

LIGHT 

HYMN TO THE CLOUDS 

ORPHEUS IN HADES . 

THE LAST AUTUMNAL WALK 

TO A BUTTERFLY SEEN IN A CROWDED 

MY FRIEND THE FRIEND 

THE DOOMED SHIP 

THE SEA-NYMPHS TO THE DRYADS 

EDITH 

THE HOME-VALENTINE 

ARE YOU 'round YET? 

LINCOLN, MARTYR 

SO TIRED .... 

THE MOUNTAIN MONARCH 

PLEA FOR THE SPOILT CHILDREN 

HURRAH FOR MEMMIXGER ! . 

THE SEER THAT DIDN'T SEE IT 

COUNTERFEIT PRESENTIMENT 

SUMTER 

INVOCATION . . . ■ 



PAGE. 

I 

31 

34 
36 
40 

47 

52 
55 
58 
60 
62 
65 
67 
69 
. 72 
75 
76 

79 
80 
82 
84 

88 
89 



VII 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



IMPUDENCE 

A VISION OF DIXIE AND DOUGH FACES 
JONATHAN AND JOHN .... 
BULLY FOR YOU, JOHN BULL ! . 
DREAM OF THE DEMOS 
WHO WILL THINK OF HENRY ? . 
LINES TO A CHRYSALIS 

LOOK ALOFT 

THE ORANGE TREE .... 

KUBLEH 

HANNAH DUSTAN .... 

TO THE HILLS 

THE WONDER THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 

CRADLE COVERLET .... 

THE FALCON AND DOVE 

IN MEMORIAM ..... 

BRIDEGROOM TO BRIDE 

HARD-HANDS' PETITION 

NEVER FEAR 

TO A FUNERAL WREATH . 

CENTRAL PARK 

TO A MINIATURE .... 

TO MEMORY DEAR .... 

TO ELIZABETH ON HER SECOND BIRTHDAY 

LINES TO A DEAR FRIEND . 

LINES ON REVISITING BERKSHIRE 

DEATH 

WAITING FOR MORNING AT PROFILE MOUNTAIN 

LOOK NOT THOU UPON THE WINE WHEN IT IS 

THE OPTIMIST 

THE BUYER BOUGHT 

LINES TO A YOUNG FRIEND 

CLERK-VESPERS IN WALL STREET 

IT IS WELL WITH THE CHILD 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



LINES ON REVISITING A FAVORITE LAKE 

THE PARTING BY THE SEA 

THE LAST WATCH 

LINES TO A DEAR YOUNG FRIEND 

BROTHER TO BROTHERS 

INTRODUCTORY LINES FOR A FRIEND 

THE TEMPTATION 

NOTHING LOST 

TO DASYA ELEGANS 

INVOCATION TO WINTER 

TO THE JOSEPHS AND PHAROAHS OF 

ONCE ON A TIME 

TO VIRGINIA 

THE ENCHANTRESS 

TO NAPOLEON THE GREAT, 1848 

CENTENNIAL ECHOES 

THE mother's HOME-CALL . 

RESPONSE OF THE RECALLED 

LIFE BEYOND LIFE 

LINES TO A FRIEND . 

TO WILLIE .... 

MISERERE .... 

WHEN ? .... 

LINES TO CLARA 

CLARA AND AGNES 

DREAM OF RENT SHACKLES 

SALT RIVER .... 

CAPITOLIAN SOLILOQUY 

INSURANCE ECHOES 

THE POETRY OF FIRE INSURANCE 

THE SAMSON OF THE HEARTH 

SAFE AND SOUND 

THE PROMETHEAN FLAME 

SONNET — SWAN POINT CEMETERY 



THE WEST 



PAGE. 
180 
184 

186 
188 
190 
IG3 

ig8 
199 
201 
203 
205 
208 
209 
211 
214 
222 
224 
226 
228 
230 
232 
234 
236 
238 
240 
242 

245 
248 
251 
256 
260 
265 
271 



CONTENTS. 



SONNET 

SONNET ..... 

SONNET TO A BEREAVED MOTHER 
DEAN STANLEY 

THE ANABASIS . . . . 

ALUMNUS AND ALMA MATER 
ALMA MATER IN TOWN AGAIN 
HAPSBURGH'S RAMPARTS . 

WONDER 

THE GIANTS AND THE DWARFS 

WHERE ? 

THE FIRST SONG 
THE SISTERS OF DESTINY 
THE SMACK IN SCHOOL 
love's attic IDYL 

DAME Salisbury's pudding 

THE ROOTED SORROW . 

TO ESTELLE 

SOME VIEW THE WORLD 

WHEN I was rich . 

MY TAILOR AND I IN THE LATE 

SOFT AND SOFTER 

ALWAYS CHEERFUL 

NUMBER ONE 

THE DESTROYER SUPPLIANT 

GIGANTOMACHIA BALTIMORENSIS 



PAGE. 
272 

273 
274 

275 
276 
280 
286 
290 
293 

297 
298 
302 

306 

30S 

3" 
313 
314 

315 
317 

318 

319 
321 

323 
326 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 



HOU hast full oft been called Death's brother^ 

^ Sleep ! 

By bards whose fancy, as in visioned dream, 
Beheld a god on every towering steep. 

Fauns in each grove and nymphs in every stream ; 
But unto me, true Mother dost thou seem, 

Of life and beauty most divinely fair ; 
Forever following Hesper's westering beam 

Along the weary haunts of toil and care, 

To shed celestial balm on all that languish there. 

Yet souls there are so avarous of time. 

So sorely conscious of uncultured powers. 
That, thankless for thy ministry sublime, 

They grudge the precious third of life's brief 
hours 
From action lured to thy inglorious bowers, 
And lulled to soft perdition, blind and dumb ! 
I 



2 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

Still for their loss requital fair is ours — 

Thou add'st by taking from the moiling sum ; 
Stealing the present hours to lengthen those to 
come. 

Ay, let us ever gratefully maintain 

That thou prolong'st our being's little span ; 

Bringing the buried years to life again 

As fresh and fair as when their lapse began ! 

The snows of age that bow the hoary man, 
Like ice-clad pine on hyperborean shore, 

Melt at thy touch, and cheeks but now so wan. 
Resume the vernal bloom their boyhood wore, 
And in the desert heart glad fountains leap once 
more. 

Behold yon guilty, hope-forsaken one. 

Whose grave yawns darkly for its felon prey 

Beneath the scaffold, where to-morrow's sun 
Shall see the rude winds swing his lifeless clay ! 

Yet even his sharp pangs canst thou allay, 
O blessed Sleep, with thy most potent spell ! 

The phantom worm, the foresense of decay, 
Stern guard, and muffled drum, and dirge, and knell 
Evanish, as thy steps steal softly to his cell. 

Man may up-pile the everlasting rock, 

And bid his fellow crouch unpitied there 
Behind the bolted bars, whose closing shock 



THE (SLERK'S DREAM. 3 

Shuts outward all but darkness, and despair, 
And thce^ sweet mocker of the tyrant's care ! 

Who fold'st his victim to thy gentle breast, 
And bear'st him forth into the wide free air 

To paths that climb the mountain's sunny crest. 

Or wind by fairy streams where night's soft 
splendors rest. 

As thou did'st steal my spirit forth yestreen 

From clerkly durance of the long, long day. 
Where through a rear, drear casement's latticed 
screen 

A few sliy beams of melancholy gray 
Peered in on bondman woe-begone as they, 

Bending in silent earnestness the while 
O'er figured tomes outspread in grim array, 

From whose summed lore no wit of man could 
wile, 

With Momus' merry aid, the prestige of a smile. 

Meseemed, at last, the cycle of an age 

Had passed since morning reinthralled me there ! 
And listlessly upon the leaden page 

My aching temple sank in sheer despair ; 
When, haply, glancing at the casement, where 

A spider, monarch of the broken pane, 
Spun round and round ^n his aerial snare, 

I blest the fates mine eyes had seen again 

One form, however mean, ungalled by curb or 
chain. 



4 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

And as the creature glided to and fro, 
As if to shame the Helot bonds I wore, 

The sickly glimmer grew, or seemed to grow, 
More pale and ruefid dim than yet before ; 

While the great city's jarring tramp and roar 
Of myriad hoofs and wheels in wild career. 

Vexing the rock-ribbed isle from shore to shore. 
Receded gradual from my drowsy ear. 
And died into the tone of some far murmuring 
sphere. 

At last, all consciousness of sight, or sound, 
Or aught that speaketh to the outwaid sense 

Of life or form in this material round, 
Passed from my spirit utterly — intense 

Oblivion drowned all waking cognizance, 
Till Fancy roused it to the magic play 

Of scenes wherewith, in kindly recompense, 
She fills the void of sleep, as night of day. 
With infinite bright hosts where one alone has 
sway. 

Methought a sweet voice wooed my drowsy ear : 

" Tis time the galling fetter should dispart ! 
Son of the Mountainland ! what dost thou here, 

Amid the painted pageantries of art. 
Where truth lies dead in many a specious heart — 

Dead as the smothered germs that never more 
Shall clothe with vernal green yon trampled mart. 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 5 

Till o'er its wastes, as in the days of yore, 
The deer shall bound again by Hudson's ruined 
shore ? 

" Art thou aweary of thy narrow bound ? 

And swells thy bosom oft with stifled moan, 
That yonder Sun, in all his annual round. 

Brings not an hour that thou canst call thy own ? 
How few the charms thy city life has known ! 

How cold the greetings of the bustling street ! 
Ah, in the human waste how vainly sown 

Tlie seeds of future joys or memories sweet ! 

Away ! and shake its dust from thy indignant 
feet ! 

" O, scorn to be the slave of Mammon's slave ! 

Nor longer wear the miserable chain 
That binds thee down in this unseemly cave 

From morn till evening brings her starry train; 
Recording, cent, per cent., the sordid gain 

By keen-eyed Avarice in the market made 
Perchance from his best friend ; while rang amain 

Tiie loaded dice, and his keen smile betrayed 

How true he held the creed, that all is fair in 
trade. 

"Thy life has reached the summit where the slopes 

Of three-score years and ten, converging, meet ; 
The one, all gay with youth's enchanting hopes, 



6 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

And rosy light, and myrtle arbors sweet ; 
The other, opening to thy pilgrim feet 

A dreary waste of deepening shade and snow, 
Down which the posting years, alas ! more fleet 

Than mountain torrent in its wildest flow, 

Shall sweep thee to the gulf that yawns for all 
below ! " 

Methought, obedient to the tuneful spell, 

I waited not the sibyl's second call ; 
Yet, pausing at the threshold, sighed, " Farewell, 

Farewell, old comrades of my twelve years' thrall ! 
Desk, high stool, coffer, journal, ledger — all — 

Ay, even to thee, Dutch chronicler, all face, 
That from th}^ perch beside the dingy wall 

Dost seem to censure time's impatient race, 

And teach his flying feet the true Teutonic 
pace ! " 

Thus saying, down the gloomy stair I sped, 
And up the crowded street my footsteps bent ; 

The very stones beneath my lightsome tread. 
Seemed springs to dance me onward as I went ! 

No wild bird long in wiry durance pent. 

No sylph in rayless dungeon doomed to pine. 

At last restored their native element. 

E'er darted forth into its shade or shine. 
With such a buoyant joy as then and there was 
mine. 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 7 

Eftsoon behind nic sank the giant mart, 

By distance changed to semblant ruins gray ; 

Unfelt the throbbing of its mighty heart, 

Unheard the death-sliriek of its last dismay : 

(irim, voiceless, vast, the stricken monster Lay, 
The stunned earth crushed beneath its Titan fall, 

Its stony ribs slew crumbling to decay. 
Writing its fame in dust, and over all 
The cloud of its last breath suspended like a pall. 

But Nature rose before me fresh and fair. 
Immortal beauty mirrored in her mien ; 

Her brow unshadowed by a passing care. 
Her bosom veiled in folds of purfled green, 

And tranced in pure beatitude serene ; 

The very ground seemed holy where I trod, 

As if the trace of angels there was seen 

Amid the flowers, that from each dewy sod 
Looked up and sweetly blest the hving smile of 
God. 

And journeying onward with enchanted sight, 
Erelong a wild and many-winding stream 

Came dancing foward with a brisk delight 
Across the green Elysium of my dream ; 

Now softly shimmering in the summer beam, 
Now coyly hiding where the plane-tree flung 

Its shadow down un flecked by golden gleam ; ' 
Yet ever singing light and shade among. 
And this the fairy strain its choral Naiads sung: 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

Prisoned long in caverned fountains, 

Lost in dungeons ebon, eerie, 
From the wild New England mountains 
We at last have broke away ! 
Ours are feet that never weary — 
See their silver sandals glancing, 
As in moonlit mazes dancing, 

Trip we onward night and day ! 

Man, who minds not alien jjleasures, 

Of his own forever dreaming. 
Oft hath sought to curb our measures 
In the windings of the hills ; 
But while smiling at his scheming, 
Cheerfully in glens and gorges 
We have wrought his sounding forges. 

Whirled his spindles and his mills. 

Nature's myriad forms are proving 

That no tiling was made to slumber ; 
All in endless cycle moving 

As the Mightiest has ordained ; 
Hosts, archangel cannot number, 
Walk yon skies with harps of gladness ; 
Why should ours, then, sleep in sadness? 

Why our flashing limbs be chained ? 

Onward ! then, o'er foamy ledges, 

On ! through groves of mirrored beeches ; 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 9 

Linger not to kiss the sedges 

Waving in the scented gale ! 
Round the headlands, down the reaches, 

Dance we on with murmuring motion ! 

Hark ! we hear thee, parent Ocean, 
And rejoicing bid thee hail ! 

Yet not long thy ravished minions 

Can be rescued from the fountains. 
Whither far on misty pinions 

Winds that prowl thy stormy shore. 
Waft us to the cloud-nursed mountains ; 
But, escaped their wildwood mazes, 
We shall speed to thy embraces. 

As ten thousand times before ! 

Three days, methought, toward my distant home. 
Three nights, like days of more enchanting beam, 

With heart as lightsome as its buoyant foam, 
I followed up the many-winding stream 

That o'er the green Elysium of my dream 
Came singing onward like a pilgrim gay, 

Who sees, at last, the sacred turrets gleam 
O'er Zion's hills or Mecca's deserts gray, 
For which his heart has yearned for many a weary 
day. 

Oft drawn aside, as by a magic chord, 

Where green nooks slept beneath their own green 
sky, 



lO THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

I sat me down upon the margent sward 

And watched the laughing waves with pensive eye; 

And, haply, if a flower came dancing by, 
I felt my heart with sudden joy expand, 

And breathed a silent benison on high. 
For that fair token from my native land, 
Perchance that very morn pressed by some kin- 
dred hand ! 

Perhaps my mother's ! ah, what weary years 

Had passed away since that had pressed my own ! 

How many hopes all drowned in bitter tears, 
Like yon bright waif upon the waters thrown. 

Had down life's swifter stream forever flown. 
Since that dear hand upon the parting hill 

So clung to mine, as palm to palm had grown ! 
And even now through all time's change and chill, 
I feel its lingering clasp, its fervid pressure still ! 

O when the bloom of youth's gay summer fades. 

Its zephyrs hushed, its music heard no more ! 
When age goes tottering tow'rd the wintry shades, 

That dark and darker wrap the waste before ! 
Dear Memory ! then thy magic charms restore 

The flowers that perished in the ruthless blast, 
The birds that sang, the friends that smiled of yore. 

The scents, the sunshine round our childhood 
cast — 

Yea throng with Pleiads lost the midnight of the 
past. 



I 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. I I 

In vain we seek llie future to forestall, 

In vain we thunder at its iron gate ; 
No warder answers to our yearning call, 

No Sybil turns for us the wards of fate ! 
A voice from out the silence bids us wait. 

And time full soon will ope the spectral hall ; 
Yet gazing through the gloom with eye dilate, 

We see inscribed upon the awful wall : 

" Behold the end of earth, the last sure home of 
all! " 

Then let us seek not with delusive hope 
The future's starless lioroscope to cast, 

While lorn and lost amid the gloom we grope, 
Like dust of diamonds scattered to the blast, 

Time's precious gems flash onward to the past — 
Ere we can call them ours, fled evermore ! 

Eacli fleeting jewel fleeter than the last ; 

JJut thou, fond Memory, canst the loss restore 
Of such as to thy shrine kind deed or purpose 
bore I 

Yet never long might these soft pensive shades 
Beside the murmuring stream my steps delay ; 

But stealing back to the forsaken glades. 

With quickened foot and pulse of brisker play, 

Toward the Mountainland I went my way, 
Still tracing up the river's silvery line ; 



12 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

And ne'er did wild bird in the flush of May- 
Behold his native groves with brighter eyne, 
Or make their echoes dance with lays more blithe 
than mine. 

For now familiar forms began to smile 

On every side, as with a fond surprise, 
In one who piped so merrily the while 

A long-lost, grateful friend to recognise ; 
The selfsame flowers that charmed my childish 
eyes, 
The selfsame birds that haunted grove and glen, 
The same bright clouds that draped life's morn- 
ing skies, 
The same proud peaks that were their ramparts 

then, — 
All these in summer's prime were mine, all mine 
again ! 

As thus along the vista of my dream 

My careless steps their pilgrimage pursued, 

Methought, far straying from the friendly stream, 
I came at last upon a terraced wood — 

A steep, wild, labyrinthine solitude. 

That seemed all farther daring to defy ; 

And as in deep perplexity I stood. 

Far up a cascade flashed upon my eye. 

And waved its snowy plume from out the very sky. 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 1 3 

Well ])leased the kindly summons I obey, 

And smile defiance at the frowning steep ; 
Now up the crag I climb my clinging way, 

Now through dim coombs of matted laurels 
creep, 
Anon o'er yawning chasms fearless leap, 

By wild vine pendent in the startled air ; 
Oft from my foot the loosened boulders sweep 

With smoking crash from shivered stair to stair ; 

Yet still toward the clouds with dauntless aim I 
fare ; 

Nor pause to mark the upward distance gained. 
Or how the landscape broadened to the sight, 

Till o'er the last grim battlement I strained, 
And stood triumphant on the topmost height. 

And well, O Nature ! did thy charms requite 
The toil that won me thy aerial throne ; 

Whence, far around, in summer's fairest light 
A green and glorious panorama shone, 
With all the tenderest hues to Memory's pencil 
known. 

For not a form o'er all that living chart 
So wide unfolded to my raptured gaze, 

But had its perfect image in my heart, 

Daguerreotyped in boyhood's punny days, 

Ere care's stern frown, or sorrow's deepening haze 
Had dimmed the glow of hope's celestial beam ; 



14 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

Blindfold I could have thrid each silvan maze, 
Traced every wayward path and winding stream 
To shades where highest noon scarce wakes the 
owlet's dream. 

All hail, I fondly cried, dear native land ! 

Ye peaks that, frowning from your kingly seat, 
Do bid the tempest's sounding legions stand. 
And furl their cloudy banners at your feet ; 
Ye groves, where summer's gayest minstrels 
meet 
And charm the echoes with love's fondest tale ; 
Ye hills, where flocks securely browse and bleat, 
Ye brooks, soft murmuring through tlie herded 

vale, 
Blue lakes, and golden fields, and peaceful ham- 
lets, hail ! 

O Freedom ! if oppresion's myrmidons, 

In after years, should forge for thee the chain, 
And, o'er the bodies of thy lowland sons. 

Hunt thee from forth the strongholds of the 
plain. 
Here shalt thou find thy sure and fast domain, 

Each crag a tower alive with glaive and gun, 
And bosoms fired to teach thy foes again 

What valor ripens in the genial sun 

That smiles on Berkshire's hills and thine, fair 
Bennington ? 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 1$ 

No tyrant's foot shall ever shame the soil 

Embattled round with freedom's mountain frieze, 
And hearts whose pastime is the time of toil, 

Whose sorest penance-hour the hour of ease : 
The willow bcndeth to the passing breeze, 

In meek submission to its lowly end ; 
While stands the oak with gnarled and stubborn 
knees. 

His flag aloft howe'er the tempest rend ; 

And they who share his hills, oak-hearted, bow 
nor bend ! 

What though the genius of these later days, 
With Science' grander lens and keener light, 

Has touched Olympus with its searching rays, 
And shrunk its ancient deities from sight ; 

Still doth their spirit haunt each kindred height. 
Shout in the whirlwind, dart the lightning's spear — 

Tis that which plumes the eagle's sunward flight ; 
'Tis that which whispers to the mountaineer : 
" Are not these rugged wilds than tropic vales 
more dear ? " 

To me, more dear than all the world beside, 
Uprose again that long-lost silvan scene. 

Surge over surge uplifted wild and wide — 
A billowy ocean, motionless, serene, 

With green abysses winding all between ; 

While fleets of gorgeous clouds went sailing slow. 



l6 THE CLERICS DREAM. 

As loth to leave so fair a sea, I ween ; 

Trailing their shadows o'er the amber glow, 
That clothed with heaven's own smile the bound- 
less swells below. 

But lo ! what form of fascinating power 
Amid the wonders of my dream appears ? 

What dear enchantress in yon leafy bower 
So fondly dims my eyes with happy tears ? 

Home of my chidhood's all too fleeting years ! 
Do I indeed behold thee once again ? 

O smile away thy truant's boding fears 
That thou, and all this fairy-like domain, 
Are but a trick of sleep — a mockery of the brain ! 

Nay, I will have you real, here and now. 

All forms on which these swimming eyes are bent ! 

Thou art Taconic of the cloud-crowned brow, 
And thou, the Mountain of the Monument, 

Cloven in twain, and one-half headlong sent 

Adown the vale whence erst its grandeur clomb ; 

And Greylock thou, that like archangel's tent 

Purplest the northward sky with thy great dome — 
I know ye, each and all, and feel that this is home ! 

Old friends ! the love that greets you is unchanged, 
As ye who smile to welcome me again ; 

Long years have passed since boyhood blithely 
ranged 
Your realm from peak to peak, from glen to glen : 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 1/ 

Far hence my bark amid the tides of men 
Has drifted helpless, compassless, and frail. 

The sport of chance ; yet felt I even then, 

When skies were darkest, most adverse the gale, 
That here benignant fate would furl its weary sail. 

Ye were the last to linger on my gaze, 

When fortune lured my thoughtless youth astray ; 
As now the first your beacon brows to raise 

Far off amid the azure cope of day. 
To guide and cheer the wanderer's homeward 
way ; 

And though with bending form and visage wan. 
And brown locks thickly shot with early gray. 

He turns to where his blithesome steps began. 

The boy's true, loving heart still nerves the way- 
worn man. 



The light reflected from thy glorious brow, 
Imperial Greylock ! o'er a thousand hills. 

Steals with a softer splendor on me now. 

With tenderer warmth my languid bosom thrills. 

Than when attracted by the fame that fills 

Far-listening vales, a wondering youth I came. 

And at the feet of thy Gamaliels 

Sat lowly down, with that becoming shame 
Such presence needs must wake to sense of 
noblest aim. 



1 8 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

O happy fate that led me to thy shrine, 
Dear Alma Mater of the fond caress ! 

How like a brimming chaUce of glad wine 
My heart ran over with the bright excess 

Of wondrous, inexpressive joyousness, 
As knowledge opened to my eager eyes 

Her priceless record of all sciences 

Wrung from the mystic earth, the blazoned skies. 
And that sublimer realm within the Soul that lies. 

studious days ! so cloudless and serene, 
Elysium's very skies seemed bending o'er 

A vale of earth, reflected in -the sheen, 

Its purple peaks and gorgeous sunsets wore ; 

And fairer yet, in eyes that evermore 

Grew brighter, watching at the Muses' shrine, 

Amid the starry beams of ancient lore ; 

Till o'er the mortal face whereon they shine. 
Veiling its clay, there steals an effluence divine ! 

Yet, Nature, glorious as thy presence is 

Amid these sunward peaks and dim defiles, 

1 must not let these wakened memories 

Enchant me longer with their witching wiles ; 
For lo ! still gleaming from your silvan aisles, 

My gaze once more a dearer presence sees — 
Thine, thine, sweet home ! whose benison of smiles 

Falls on my soul from those ancestral trees. 

Whose green arms all the while wave welcomes 
on the breeze. 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 1 9 

And who shall tell the joys for me in store, 

Though every Muse should smile upon his strain, 

When, lightly stealing through yon cottage door, 
I stand upon its sacred hearth again ? 

What arms shall clasp me in their loving chain ? 
What sweet lips, fondly vieing with my own, 

Shall shower their kisses warm as summer rain ? 
What hours of soul-felt gladness shall atone 
For all the aching years to hopeless absence 
known ? 

Swift as a page on blithesome mission sent. 

Away I darted down a near ravine ; 
And soon the Mountain of the Monument, 

Whence I had gazed upon that lovely scene, 
Towered far behind me in the blue serene ; 

Yet paused I never in my wild career 
O'er sunny hills and murmuring valleys green, 

Till once again upon my raptured ear 

The sounds of home rose sweet as angel voices 
near. 

But ah ! how cold are fancy's warmest dyes 

To paint the scene where absent hours expire ! 
The tears that tremble in the mother's eyes 

All lighted up with love's divinest fire ; 
The calmer gladness of the hoary sire, 

Erect for all his threescore years and ten ; 
The sister's irrepressible desire 

To cling within your circling arms, and then 



20 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

The brother's cordial grasp, and welcome liome 
again ! 

Oh, home ! where gleams of Eden still attest 

How bright and fair was love's primeval shrine ; 

Such were the fond illusions that possest, 

At that glad hour, my dream of thee and thine ; 

Each eye that turned so yearningly from mine 
To look its silent benison above. 

Each faltering voice of tenderness divine, 

Each tear, smile, kiss, — how tenderly they prove 
That paradise unlost, where love responds to love. 

Then spake my mother with sweet-chiding sighs : 
" Twelve years away ! indeed it was not fair 

To leave so long before our longing eyes 
The painful presence of your vacant chair ! 

Vacant ? Oh, no ; the phantom of despair 
Usurped it oft, and gloomed on all around ! " 

"But," smiled my father, "now that he is there 
Once more in his old place, let joy abound — 
The longer lost to hope, the welcomer when 
found ! " 

"Yes," smiled my sister, " but the stray-away 

Must promise ne'er to part love's golden chain — 

Nay, almost swear, that from this blessed day 
He will not leave us, even in dreams again ! " 

" Thy cheek for Book ! " I smiled — " Yet oaths are 
vain, 
Dearest ; for, sooth, my wanderings are all o'er ! — 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 21 

Ah, be assured, the lessons learned of pain 
Are wisdom's oracles for evermore ! 
I could not, if I would, forget their warning lore ; 

" Forget that yonder world, so brave and gay. 

To whose bright scenes my dazzled steps I bent. 

With all its promised joys can ne'er repay 
The loss of one sweet hour of home-content : 

Ay, gilded world, the vail at last is rent, 

That masked thy haggard face and maniac mirth ! 

Henceforth my wiser years shall all be spent 
Here where life's morning memories had birth 
Amid the dews of love and sunshine of the hearth. 

" Forgive the past, dear friends ! its hopes and fears 
Awake no more to sadden or deceive ; 

Here shall the conscience of those wiser years 
Fondly essay past errors to retrieve. 

Need I be sworn no more your hearts to grieve 
By absence .<* " — " Nay," my sister smiled, *' 'twere 
vain ; 

For, truant, know we mean henceforth to weave 
Around your roving thoughts so fast a chain. 
You could not, if you would, break from its clasp 
again I " 

Conversed we thus, till midnight's brooding calm 
Around the vale its starry silence shed ; 

Then, Oh, how sweetly rose the household psalm ! 
How tenderly the household prayer was read ! 



22 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

Good night and happy dreams, how fondly said ! 
As turning from the hearthstone's dying gleams, 

Each to his waiting couch delighted sped ; 
Yet scarce to slumber for the haunting themes 
That charmed our waking thoughts like spell of 
happiest dreams ! 

Beneath my childhood's roof again I lay, 

In that dear chamber, lapped in peace profound ; 

No change had passed its threshold since the day 
I broke away from its enchanted bound ; 

The old familiar forms were. all around, 

And each its own sweet charm of memory wore ; 

And still the sweeter for the rustling sound 

Of boughs that kissed my casement o'er and o'er — 
How light their shadows danced upon the moon- 
lit floor ! 

Here was my favorite haunt in days whilom. 
To list the strains of Hellas' magic lyre. 

Or hear its echoes in the harps of Rome 

Restored with scarcely less enchanting wire ; 

Here had I first heard Dante's words of fire, 

And Schiller's wild and Goethe's wondrous shell ; 

Here, too, had England's many-voiced choir, 
All others drowning in its matchless swell, 
First taught my soul how vast the minstrel's scope 
and spell. 



TIIK CLERK'S DREAM. 23 

As thus, melhought, withdrawn from waking ills, 
Though still awake, in that sweet trance I lay, 

Morn swiftly rounded to her orient hills, 

And sowed them broadcast with the gems of day ; 

Nor long they shone in garniture so gay. 

Ere I was bounding through their fragrant bowers, 

Or down their dells, or o'er their lawns astray — 
What mattered whither led the dancing hours. 
Where every footfall lit on memory's clustering 
flowers ? 

This lake that mirrors half a league of sky. 
Was boyhood's ocean, where, in truant bliss 

Oblivious, my merry mates and I 

Were wont to launch our span-long argosies. 

Thread-rigged, and freighted with fair venturies 
Of shining shells or blossoms from the lea ; 

Yet who so bold to say that he or his. 
Who bore the golden fleece to Argolie, 
Was half so proud of craft or blithe of heart as we ? 

And hither, when its azure light was dead. 

Its dimples fast in winter's icy seal, 
Aross the snowy fields we gaily sped 

To whirl and gambol on the giddy steel. 
That gives to boyhood's bounding heart to feel 

The joy that danceth in the eagle's .wing ; 
And, when, at times, the ice-rift's sudden peal 



24 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

To shoreward thundered from our sidelong swing, 
With what a shout we made the upland hollows 
ring ! 

In autumn's sunny days, on yonder hill 

We shared the old bee-hunter's pleasant care ; 

And when his murmuring guest had sipped his fill, 
And swift upwheeling from the fragrant snare 

Glanced hiveward, straight as arrow cleaves the 
air, 
How oft, forth darting with impetuous bound, 

We chased the laden plunderer to his lair, 
And made the distant woods reecho round : 
" Ho ! for the silvan mine, the sweet Dorado 
found ! " 

And lo ! the stream that with such wayward grace 
Goes winding o'er yon valley's flowery breast, 

As if it could not leave so dear a place, 
But ever wander there, a charmed guest ; 

Can I forget the pride my looks confest 
When first I swam its widest channel o'er ? 

Or that glad hour of all my hours most blest, 
When from its swirling vehemence I bore 
The widow's drowning son in safety to the shore ? 

And now I wander to the maple grove. 
That gayest scene of all the vernal year — 

O what delight was mine again to rove 

Amid the silvan charms that clustered here ! 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 2$ 

The mossy troughs o'erbrimming, far and near, 

^Vitll sweetest nectar of the Dryades ; 
The groaning sled, urged on with shout and 
cheer, 
Toward the steaming lodge, that filled the breeze 
With clouds upcurling white among the budding 
trees. 

Such merry groups as wont to gather there 

From all the hills when jocund evening came ! 

Ah me ! the cards flew briskly in the glare 
Of cauldrons kirtled deep with ruddy flame : 

No moping whist, but high-low-jack the game, 
Nothing the stake, and no wise Hoyle to thrall ; 

Victor or vanquished, it was all the same ; 

Nor mattered it to whom the deal might fall — 
The deftest rogue always shuffled, cut, dealt 
for all. 

And now the old red school-house rose to view, 
Where three lanes wandered to its green domain ; 

And O what dear associations drew 

My footsteps thither o'er the silent plain ! 

Then, then indeed, I was a boy again. 
As, seated at my desk, I gazed about 

On ink-bespattered wall and shattered pane, 
And heard, in fancy, that uproarious shout 
Which shook down showers of caps, " Hurrah, 
boys, school is out. ! " 



26 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

But let me ever shun thy hateful banks, 

Thou Brook, that babblest through the neighbor- 
ing glade ! 

By me small meed of tuneful praise or thanks 
To thy officious largess shall be paid : 

Alas ! how oft, forlorn and sore afraid, 

From some mad prank of boyhood's wild heyday, 

Have I been sent to thy remorseless shade 
For store of crimson osiers, whose smart play 
Should leave my tingling limbs as rubicund as 
they ! 

Nor far remote, behold ! the village spire, 
Uptapering white in morning's rosy sheen, 

Invites me on, and wings the fond desire 

To muse once more in memory's holiest scene ; 

And soon, where over mounds of deepest green 
The sweet acacia's snowy blooms are shed, 

I wander, lost in pensive thought serene ; 

Stealing from tomb to tomb with silent tread 
Along thy voiceless streets, pale City of the Dead ! 



And well may he who visits thy sad halls 
Move softly, as with reverential fears ; 

Where at each turn some graven name recalls 
The lost companion of his joyous years ; 

Where every turf the dew of loving tears 

Has hallowed, even though it fold the unjust 

Where every flower, its sacred form that rears 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 2/ 

To win and seal affection's trembling trust 
With its sweet-messaged lips, is born of human 
dust ! 

For lo ! these precincts have been hallowed ground, 
The bourne of life, for centuries untold : 

Hither from all the forest wilds around, 

The red men came and scooped the yellow mould. 

And laid therein the brave and sachem bold, 

Whom death had summoned from their scarry 
band. 

With war-club grasped by fingers stark and cold, 
And bow, and shaft, and tomahawk at hand. 
Wherewith their parted shades might roam the 
spirit-land. 

Ay, and two hundred years their flight have sped. 

Since they who wandered from the eastern seas 
Inland to this far vale, have laid their dead 

To slumber 'neath these venerable trees, 
Where sleep the dark woods' red autochthones, 

In blest oblivion of the restless race 
Whose voice has swept their echoes from the 
breeze — 

Whose graves will soon their mouldering bones 
displace, 

Nor leave of them and theirs a record or a trace ! 

Even now, where'er amid these leafy glooms 
From side to side my lingering gaze I turn. 



28 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

Each verdant walk is white with marble tombs 
Adorned with tablet, cross, or sculptured urn, 

Where all, who will, the name and fame may learn 
Of those who sleep the dreamless sleep below — 

The loved and lost, for whom the hamlets yearn. 
Yet not as those, whose tears of anguish flow 
From eyes that see no light, in blind and hope- 
less woe. 

Ah, no ! not such were wont to be the tears 

By Edwards' followers o'er their lost ones shed ; 

Nor theirs, whom Edwards' friend for sixty years 
Toward the land of silence gently led ; 

And fed their souls with everlasting bread, 
Which whoso eats, shall never hunger more ; 

And taught the mourner, blessed are the dead 
Who die in Christ, for, toil and travail o'er, 
Their works do follow them to glory's peaceful 
shore ! 

Whither thou wentest in thy prime of years, 
Dear Isabelle ! whose grave is at my side- — 

Hope was indeed the Iris of our tears. 

For well we deemed no sorrow could betide 

A soul so near to seraph ones allied — 

To whom so much of beauty had been given, 

That, had some far- returning angel spied 

Thy kindred form here gliding, morn or even, 
He could not choose but ask : " Sister, what news 
from heaven.? " 



THE CLERK'S DREAM. 2g 

As thus involved in fancy's charmed maze, 

Through dreamland's bright Elysium I strayed, 

And heard the voices dear of early days, 

And mused by lake and stream, by hill and 
glade — 

AVherever boyhood mid the flowers had made. 
Of old, a haunt unclouded by a care — 

Sudden, methought, my pensive steps were stayed. 
As pealed a knell upon the startled air, 
And, springing to my feet, I woke, and found 
me — where ? 

Alas ! not pacing o'er my native hills, 
Beneath the glories of the new-born day ; 

Nor where the wanderer's heart with rapture 
thrills 
To see the smiles of hdme around him play— 

Ah, no ! that vanished home was far away 

O'er many an azure league of mount and plain ! 

In s/i'nV only had I been astray ; 

And thus recalled from slumber's visioned reign, 
I woke, alas ! the slave of Mammon's slave 
again. 

Around, instead of morning's rosy sheen, 
The shadows fell of night's descending pall ; 

There was the drear rear casement's latticed-screen, 
And there the comrades of my twelve years' 
thrall— 



30 THE CLERK'S DREAM. 

Desk, high stool, coffer, journal, ledger — all ! — 
Yet ah ! how oft my bosom shall expand 

With jo)% O gracious Sleep ! as I recall 

The hours when thou didst take me by the 

hand 
And lead my spirit back unto the Mountainland ! 

Therefore, Enchantress dear, will I maintain 

That thou dost broaden, brighten life's brief 
span. 

Bringing the buried years to light again 

As fresh and fair as when their course began ! 

Thou mak'st the man a child, the child a man ; 
Crownest the beggar, strik'st the king aghast ; 

Unstayed by time and space, by bond or ban. 
Thou dost the future's mysteries forecast, 
And light with all its stars the midnight of the 
past ! 



PASS ON, RELENTLESS WORLD. 

O World ! World ! World ! 

— Shak. 

ASS on, relentless world ! 

With all thy gairish pageantry and noise, 
Pennon, and plume, and oriflamme unfurled — 

I envy not thy toys ; 
For thoughts that stiug the brain, 

On that dark brow are registered in guilt ; 
And thy i)oor heart is wrung with many a pain, 
Smile, maniac, as thou wilt. 

Thou of the eagle eye, 

In the red chariot of conquest drawn ; 
Cursed by the widow's and the orphan's sigh, 

Pass in thy triumph on ! 
Yet know, in this proud day 

Of exaltation and of victory, 
There be, who, sighing, mark thy grand array, 

And, shuddering, shrink from thee. 

Thou who, though worn an -born. 

Art mortals' crowned or mitred deity ; 
3t 



32 PASS ON, RELENTLESS WORLD. 

Pass on ! I shrink not from thy glance of scorn, 

Nor bend the abject knee ; 
For though the Tyrian robe 

Wrap thee in hues as bright as Eden's sky, 
And thy dread sceptre awe the subject globe, 

Death will not pass thee by. 

Fairest and frailest flower, 

Beauty ! that joyest in thy heavenly birth, 
Ruling all spirits Avith a witching power, 

Pass on, proud queen of earth ! 
Yet at no far off day, 

Shall fade the glory of that angel form ; 
And near the bravery of its pampered clay. 

Shall lurk the darkling worm. 

And thou, whose iron door 

Was never opened to the sufferer's cry ; 
Whose stride to wealth was o'er the friendless poor, 

Unstayed by misery's sigh ; 
With all thy millions speed, 

Insatiate, reckless of the trampled throng — 
Justice hath yet in store the righteous meed 

Of thy inhuman wrong ! 

Traitor to friendship's trust, 

Who, fawning, smil'dst through fortune's sunny 
day, 
But when thy dupe was stricken to the dust, 

Turn'dst from his woes away — 



PASS ON, RELENTLESS WORLD. 33 

Pass on, dishonored one ! 

Thy deepening shame, thy baseness go with thee— 
There are dark spots upon the glorious sun ; 

Could earth, then, be more free ? 

And thou, whose every thought 

Conspired the ruin of creation's pride, 
Woman, for whom the demigods have fought. 

And Adam's noblest died — 
Who, when her love was won, 

Didst spurn it for the wanton and the wine — 
Pass on ! I may not speak thy malison. 

For vengeance is not mine. 

V>M\. ye, to whom remain 

Unsullied honor and unswerving truth ; 
Faith that our fallen race may yet regain 

The Eden of its youth — 
Whose love for human kind 

Is ever active, patient and serene ; 
Whose charities are like the bourneless wind, 

Unwearied as unseen — 

And ye, on whom the call 

To wealth, rank, glory, has no mastering sway ; 
r'aithful, and just, and kind, in hut or hall — 

Oh, pass not thus away ! 
For sure it is unmeet 

That ye, who form life's beauty and its worth. 
Blessing its mingled cup with all its sweet. 
Should lightly pass from earth. 



LOVE'S SECOND-SIGHT. 

|jP^||AR through the dim, lone vistas of the night, 
|h.tomJ As eye to ej'e, thy form and face appear, 
Love's inward vision needs -no outward light. 
No magic glass to bring the absent near. 

Seas roll between us, Lo, the palm-tree throws 
Its shadow southward from yon moonlit hill ; 

And stars that never on my boyhood rose, 
Are round me now, and yet I see thee still ; 

Alone thou sighest on the beaconed steep. 
While sports thy sister by the waves alone : 

Why dost thou gaze so fondly o'er the deep ? 
Ah, blush not, love, the tender truth to own ! 

I see thee sink upon thy bended knees. 
Yet not as one who bows in mute despair ; 

Nor need I listen to the tell-tale breeze, 

To learn whose name is oftenest in thy prayer. 
34 



LOVE'S SECON-D SIGHT. 35 

Thy cheek is wet — n-as that a falling gem 

From the pearled braid that binds thy golden 
curls ? 

No, never shone from jewelled diadem 
A gem so bright as beauty's liquid pearls. 

Thou turn'st away — though fair the moonlit main, 
No sail appears, thy yearning heart to thrill : 

One long, last gaze, and on the night again 
Thy casement closes, yet I see thee still ! 

On thy sweet face, as in a magic glass, 

I see the shapes that haunt thy slumbering eyes : 

What smiles of joy, when Hope's gay visions pass ! 
What pictured woe, when Fear's dark phantoms 



Why dost thou wake, while yet the East is dark, 
To hold sad commune with the wind and surge ? 

'Twas but a dream that wrecked thy lover's bark, 
Only a dream that sang his ocean dirge ! 

Even now that bark, before the homeward gale, 
Flies like a bird that seeks her callow nest ; 

Soon shall thine eyes behold its furling sail, 
Soon thy fond bosom to my own be prest ! 

I could not fail to hold my course aright, 

Though every orb were quenched in yon blue sea : 

Love's inward vision needs no outward light, 
Star of my soul, no cynosure but thee ! 



LIGHT. 



Bright effluence of bright essence increate ! 
Before the sun, before the heavens, thou wert. 

— MjLTON. 



la-^BiROM the quickened womb of the primal 

The sun rolled black and bare, 
Till I wove him a vest for his Ethiop breast, 

Of the threads of my golden hair : 
And when the broad tent of the firmament 

Arose on its airy spars, 
I pencilled the hue of its matchless blue, 

And spangled it round with stars. 



11. 

I painted the flowers of Eden bowers. 
And their leaves of living green, 

And mine were the dyes in the sinless eyes 
Of Eden's virgin queen ; 

36 



LIGHT. 37 

And when the Fiend's art on her trustful heart 

Had fastened its mortal spell, 
In the silvery sphere of the first-born tear 

To the trembling earth I fell. 



When the waves that burst o'er a world accursed. 

Their work of wrath had sped, 
And the Ark's lone few, the tried and true, 

Came forth among the dead ; 
With the wondrous gleams of my braided beams, 

I bade their terrors cease, 
As I wrote on the roll of the storm's dark scroll 

God's covenant of peace. 

IV. 

Like a pall at rest on a pulseless breast, 

Night's funeral shadow slept 
Where shepherd swains on the Bethlehem plains 

Their lonely vigils kept ; 
When I flashed on their sight the heralds bright 

Of heaven's redeeming plan, 
As they chanted the morn of a Saviour born — 

Joy, joy to the outcast Man ! 

V. 

Equal favor I show to the lofty and low, 
On the just and unjust I descend ; 



38 LIGHT. 

E'en the blind, whose vain spheres roll in darkness 
and tears, 

Feel my smile the blest smile of a friend : 
Nay, the flower of the waste by my love is embraced, 

As the rose in the garden of kings — 
At the chrysalis bier of the worm I appear, 
■ And lo ! the gay butterfly's wings ! 

VI. 

The desolate Morn, like a mourner forlorn, 

Conceals all the pride of her charms, 
Till I bid the bright Hours xhase the Night from 
her bowers, 

And lead the young Day to her arms : 
And when the gay rover seeks Eve for his lover, 

And sinks to her balmy repose, 
I wrap their soft rest, by the zephyr-fanned west. 

In curtains of amber and rose. 

vn. 

From my sentinel step, by the night-brooded deep, 

I gaze with unslumbering eye, 
When the cynosure star of the mariner 

Is blotted from the sky ; 
And guided by me through the merciless sea, 

Though sped by the hurricane's wings, ^ 
His compassless bark, lone, weltering, dark, 

To the haven-home safely he brings. 



LIGHT. 39 

VIII. 

I waken the flowers in their dew-spangled bowers. 

The birds in their chambers of green ; 
And mountain and plain glow with beauty again, 

As they bask in my matinal sheen. 
O if such the glad worth of my presence to earth, 

Though fitful and fleeting the while, 
What glories must rest on the home of the blest, 

Ever britrht with the Deity's smile ! 



HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. 

Turn poteris magnas moleis cognoscere eorum, 

Speluncasque velut saxis pendentibu' structas 

Cernere. 

Lucretius. 

LL hail ! ye graceful children of the sun, 
Whose genial beams evoked your fairy forms 
From ocean's quickened bosom, or the lap 
Of silver lakes, of heart of shimmering streams, 
Or green savannas, where the moonlit night 
Enspheres her brightest galaxy of dews ! 
Come ye with airy chalices to fill 
The wild flower's languid eyes with tears of joy — 
Come ye to catch the earliest smiles of morn, 
And pour their reflex on the vales below ; 
Or drape the clpsing chambers of the day 
With curtains woven in the looms of heaven — 
Come ye to hush the nations in deep awe, 
As o'er their bended heads, in frowning pomp, 
Ye waft the flashing armory of God ; 
Or calm their terrors, when from deluged fields 
They lift their suppliant eyes, and see again 
40 



HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. 4 1 

The rainbow's iDromise beaming through the 

storm — 
Come ye in gloom or glory, hope or fear, 
Whate'er your aspect or your errand, hail ! 
Ay, ever welcome to the Mountainland 
Where Freedom haunts be ye, divinest types 
Of her embodied presence ; famed of old 
To love the hoary fastnesses she loves ; 
For there your grandeur finds its fittest throne, 
And hearts to kindred majesty sublimed. 

Wonder and glory of the firmament ! 

In earlier years strange questioning was mine. 

Of what ye were, and whence, and whither bound ; 

As to and fro your gliding phantoms trailed 

Their slanted shadows o'er the sunny plains. 

Or in mid-air slept motionless. How oft 

The half-conned task and tasker's dreaded frown 

Were unremembered, as my schoolward steps, 

Enchanted, lingered while I gazed and gazed 

On your fantastic phases ! seeming, now, 

Aerial mountains stranger than the shapes 

That haunt wild dreams, or throng the fabling lore 

Of earth's first minstrels ; then, celestial isles 

Embosomed in the calm of azure seas ; 

Then, bright pavilions where the storm-tost syli)h 

Might furl her ruffled wings in soft repose ; 

Anon, sky-mountains cliffed with giant gems 

Of ruby, sapphire, amethyst or pearl. 



42 HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. 

From whose resplendent peaks, methought, were 

hewn 
The gorgeous shafts, and architraves, and domes, 
That grace the vistas of the Fairyland. 

Free rovers of the boundless and the free ! 

To every breeze ye fling your careless sails. 

And course from zone to zone, by night or day ; 

With store of laden jewels, to which earth's, 

Thrice told in all their glory, were but dross. 

Nor hoard ye these, blest almoners of Him 

Whose bounty knows nor weariness nor bourne ; 

But, true to your high mission, visit all 

That breathe or be, with largesses of love. 

To vernal climes, aerial argosies ! 

Ye waft from warmer skies the early rain, 

And lo ! the lifeless bosom of the waste 

Beteems with (quickened germs ; the naked glebe 

Is robed, anon, as with a mantle dyed 

In liquid emeralds ; and every gale 

That waves the bridal drapery of May, 

Baptised in floral sweets, a spirit seems 

Just parted from the Gardens of the Blest. 

But Nature, most, in Summer's fiery reign. 
Exults in your glad presence and adores ; 
For then a deeper and intenser life, 
And hopes and fears of mightier concern. 
As linked with plenty's weal or famine's woe, 



HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. 43 

On your celestial ministries depend. 

When faints the breeze, and e'en the very air 

Grows visible with crinkling sultriness, 

And flowers shrink earthward from the brazen 

gaze 
Of suns that wanton nearer, day by day ; 
When flocks and herds forsake the russet hills 
For glens where nooks of herby green still smile ; 
When upland glades are glorious no more 
With flash of sunlit streams, and lowliest dells 
Scarce catch the murmur of their dying dirge — 
Then shouts the swain to hear the thunder-tramp 
Of your roused legions, echoing from afar ; 
And gladlier yet, to see their dusky van 
O'erloom his near horizon, and frown back 
The noon's effulgence from his withering fields. 
Still, where he stands, so deep the breathless calm, 
The spider's pendent streamer plumbs the air 
Direct as line of steel ; but on the heights 
Beyond the sultry vale, he sees the groves 
Wave their green signals, and the harvest-slopes 
Break into golden billows like a sea 
Of amber glory, as the courier gale 
Speeds onward in its heralding of joy. 
Anon, the silvery curtains of the shower 
Infold the lessening landscape from his view ; 
And now the leafy shelter o'er his head 
Rustles with liquid music, as ye pour 
The beaded crystal from your misty urns ; 



44 HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. 

And hark ! the streams have found their harps 

again, 
And, in wild chorus from the wimpled hills, 
Proclaim their boisterous gladness to the vales. 

And Autumn, too, rejoices when the storm 
Unseals your wafted Horebs o'er her wastes, 
And spring and mere replenishes anew, 
To bless the homeless creatures of the wild 
With grateful bounty graciously bestown, 
What time all else grows pitiless and stern. 
Nor are ye praiseless, when the ruffian hand 
Of Winter strips from Nature's stricken form 
Her weeds of faded wretchedness, and leaves 
Her shivering bosom naked to the blast ; 
For then around her palsied heart ye fold 
Your fleecy mantle, till the sunny Spring 
Shall bid its pulses throb with joy again. 

Thus with the Seasons in eternal change, 

And with the chainless winds, ye circle on. 

O'er earth and ocean, through the day's bright 

round. 
Or night's dim shadow, beaconed by her stars. 
Oh, stoop your wandering pinions and upbear 
A lowly suppliant in your flight sublime ! 
Yon mountain cincture of his native vale 
Embraces all the universe he knows ; 
Ah ! bear him hence to that remoter world. 



HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. 45 

O'er whose broad realms and intervolving seas, 
Isles, lakes, streams, shrines and fields of old re- 
nown, 
As chartered pilgrims ye have gazed at will. 
Let him with you behold the morning-star, 
While yet the mountain-peaks are palled in gloom ; 
And gaze at eve upon the lingering sun, 
While Alps or Andes mourn his vanished smile ; 
Let him behold the eagle's stalwart wang, 
Upsweeping, falter far beneath the height 
Of your sublimer soaring ; and beyond 
The utmost trace of man's determined will 
To plant his foot upon the stormy pc)les, 
Still bear him onward in your boundless sweep ; 
That one, at least, of mortal birth may see 
How ye for long dark centuries have piled 
Their awful wastes with everlasting snows ; 
And list the thunder of the meteor main 
Boom on the shuddering air, when, many a league, 
The frost-pang rives its adamantine deeps. 

Vain wish ! though man may launch his echoing 

car 
Sheer through the cloven hills, or bare the heart 
Of rock-ribbed mountains for the glittering stores 
Hid in their sunless crypts ; may mock the winds 
As o'er the waves they chase his careless bark ; 
Or bid the storm lash white the yeasty surge, 
While, undismayed, beneath the wild uproar 



46 HYMN TO THE CLOUDS. 

He walks the pathless mazes of the deep — 
Yet when his vain presumption would ascend 
Your glorious heights, proud fondlings of the air, 
The swallow soaring from her lowly nest 
Doth laugh his vaulting impotence to scorn ! 

And yet the groveling worm — the meanest thing 
On whose blind wants your blest aspersion falls- 
Hath wings unfolding in its reptile frame, 
And instincts ripening for a nobler sphere. 
Therefore, O man ! though tethered to the clod, 
Take heart from thy low brother of the dust, 
And deem his fate presagefui of thine own. 
Yon sovran shapes, whose coursers are the winds, 
Whose range the airy infinite, whose robes 
The prismy texture of celestial beams, 
But now were portion of the trodden earth, 
Or of the weltering chaos of the deep ; 
Till from gross ties emancipate, they rose 
To nearer fellowship with sun and star. 
Then lift thine eyes to those exalted ones, 
And trust that when these Adams fall to dust. 
The spirit, plumed for seraph flights, shall soar 
To high communion with the hosts that range. 
On Mercy's bests, the universe of God ! 



ORPHEUS IN HADES. 

Manesque adiit, Regemque tremendum. — Virgil. 

Geog. IV, V, 469. 

Is this awful presence real ? 

This grim Pluto's dread domain ? 
Or not, rather, some ideal 

Figment of a troubled brain ? 
Nay, it is no mocking vision 

Born of frantic hope or fear, 
And my heart with calm decision 

Whispers, Minstrel, be of cheer ! 

[Addresses Pluto.] 
Lo ! the first of living mortals 

That e'er crossed the Stygian wave — 
Do not spurn me from your portals, 

Nor refuse the boon I crave ! 
By that queenly form beside thee, 

Rapt from Enna's flowery fold. 
King of Hades, do not chide me 

If I seem unseemly bold. 
47 



48 ORPHEUS IN HADES. 

[To himself.] 
Rocks and woods my footsteps follow, 

Wildest streams in silence stand, 
When thy golden gift, Apollo ! 

Melts in music to my hand. 
Shall its tones prove less enchanting 

Here, than in yon world above, 
When its 'master, faint and panting, 

Pleads the cause of life and love ? 

[To his Lyre.] 
Let me try what magic slumbers. 

Lyre ! in thy melodious chords ; 
When to music's sweetest numbers 

Passion weds her tenderest words- 
See ! the Furies lean to listen, 

Atropos relenting hears ; 
Nay, e'en Pluto's stern eyes glisten, 

Proserpine's are drowned in tears ! 

[To the King and Queen.] 
Oh ! how sweet your answer falleth 
On my spirit, rapt and still : 
''' Fate thy darling's doom recalleth — 
Mortal, thou shalt have thy will ! 
She for whom thy soul is yearning, 
Sunward shall thy steps retrace ; 
But beware, the while, of turning 
Once to gaze upon her face ! " 



ORPHEUS IN HADES. 49 

[To himself, enraptured.] 

Shall I, then, again behold her, 

As in days so fondly blest ? 
Shall these widowed arms enfold her. 

These sad lips to hers be prest ? 
Oh, the just yet sweet confession 

Of a rapture so intense ! 
Silence were its best expression, 

Tears its truest eloquence. 

See ! yon golden gate discloses 

Glimpses of the blissful bowers, 
Where immortal youth reposes. 

Crowned with amaranthine flowers ; 
And, as she the threshold crosses. 

From the fields of asphodel 
Comes a swell of spirit voices, 

Softly murmuring, Fare thee well ! 

[To the friends of Eurydice.] 

Sister Souls ! your choral blessing 

Fate shall tenderly fulfill — 
In my arms, caressed, caressing. 

She shall find Elysium still ; 
For, wherever truth and duty 

Link the loving, heart to heart. 
Your fair world in all its beauty 

Sees its perfect counterpart. 



50 ORPHEUS IN HADES. 

[To the restored Wife.] 

Grieve not, dearest, that thy lover 

Leads thee with averted face ; 
Ah, the Stygian bourne once over, 

How he'll spring to thy embrace ! 
But till that dear consummation. 

Be the thought our mutual cheer : 
That in deepest obscuration 

Each to each is ever near. 

Lo, already, faintly gleaming. 

Far Avernus dawns to sight ? 
Down whose dusky caverns streaming 

Glance the golden shafts of light ! 
As they brighter fall around thee. 

Fainter pleads my woful vow — 
Nay, though thousand oaths had bound me^ 

/ rrnist see thee, here and now ! 

[Turns to embrace her.] 

Fairest of all fairest faces, 
' Oh ! the rapture, once, once more 

To behold those dimpled graces, 

Lovelier far than e'er before ! 
But, alas, the hopes they waken, 

Vanish like a frighted bird — 
Ah, so soon to be forsaken 

By a bliss so long deferred ! 



ORPHEUS IN HADES. 5 I 

|To the opposers of his pursuit of Eurydice.l 
Back, ye Gorgons, grimly glaring 

Where the rosy vision fled ! 
All your banded fury daring, 

I again will seek my dead. 
Vain, vain boast ! forever vanished 

Is thy dream the loved to free — 
By thy own blind passion banished, 

Justest Fates, too, banish thee. 

Yet ye have not all bereft me, 

Parcae ! spurned from Lethe's shore — 
This dear solace still is left me. 

That I've seen her face once more ! 
And whatever hence betide me, 

That fair vision, day and night, 
Like a star, at last shall guide me 

To her own blest land of light. 



THE LAST AUTUMNAL WALK. 

JHEN we last paced these sylvan wilds, dear 
friend, 

Each shrub, and tree, and swarded space between, 
Were flush with balmy June, and every nook 
Of all the grove could boast its own sweet lyre. 
Our path was paved with shadows gaily flecked 
With glints of golden sunlight, as it were 
The print of angels' topaz-sandaled feet 
Upon the glowing turf ; and as we strayed 
From glen to glen, no dusky forms kept pace 
With our own steps, along the browner shades. 
Thy arm was linked in mine, and oftentimes 
Amid the choral symphony, our lips 
Broke into song spontaneous as the birds' 

Four moons have run their cycles since we stood 
In Summer's green pavilion, then so gay. 
But now so changed we scarce can recognize 
One form or feature of the faded scene. 
No bird recalls the melodies of June, 
No flower its sweets, no bough its rustling shades ; 
52 



THE LAST AUTUMNAL WALK. 53 

Through all the roofless grove the sun stares in 
Wkh unobstructed gaze, and as we pass, 
Twin shadows glide beside us, arm in arm, 
With silent footfall on the dreary waste. 
When now we pause, 'tis not with merry lips 
To swell the sylvan concert ; but to blend 
Our sigh with Nature's, as in funeral stole 
Forlorn she follows Autumn's passing bier ; 
And, dearest, while I turn to whisper cheer. 
Thy blue eyes overbrim, and silver rain 
Falls audibly upon the rustled leaves. 

Yet know, sweet mourner, and assured, take 

heart, 
That 'neath these russet cerements, not in death. 
But quick quiescence, sleep the hopes of Spring ! 
No seed, no germ, no bulb of vanished flower, 
No folded bud in all the bosky wild. 
Is numbered with the dying or the dead ; 
Nay, in the palzied heart of these stark trees 
The languid pulse of life still patient beats. 
A few brief months, and we will stand again 
On the green summit of this forest knoll, 
And list, delighted, to the flying harps. 
That fill the leafy aisles with vernal joy. 
Before our steps the vglvet sward again 
Shall spread its sun-flecked shadows, and full oft 
By marge of dancing stream, thy careless foot 
Shall sink in tufted violets instep-deep ; 



54 THE LAST AUTUMNAL WALK. 

What time the cornel and the hawthorn cast 
Their snowy blossoms on the scented air, 
And every floral chrysalis awakes 
To life and beauty from its shrouded sleep. 

Meanwhile, dear friend, in our suburban cot 
Thy favorite flowers shall bloom the Winter long, 
And day and night, with silent lips still breathe 
Sweet-scented thanks to thee ; for in thy smiles 
They shall not miss the charm of sunny skies. 
Nor in thy household songs remember more 
The song of birds, but deem 'tis Summer still. 
Thyself their Flora, from thy genial hand 
Shall fall the needed dews each coming morn ; 
Till vernal sun and voice of vernal choirs 
Shall call us forth to these dear wilds again ! 



TO A BUTTERFLY SEEN IN A CROWDED 
STREET. 

HEREFORE, little fluttering thing 
With the rainbow-tinted wing, 
And the right, at will, to rove 
Sunny lawn and shadowy grove, 
Hast thou left demesnes so blest, 
To be Babel's hapless guest ? 
Here's no fitting haunt for thee, 
Boon companion of the bee ! 
Born, like her, with flowers to dwell 
In the sweet sequestered dell. 
And at Nature's board to sip 
Nectar from each blossom's lip. 

Here, where neath man's iron tread 
Earth's green beauties all are dead. 
Thou wilt find no leafy screen 
From the noontide's piercing sheen ; 
And, at eve, no fairy home 
Like the lily's golden dome. 
■ 55 



56 TO A BUTTERFLY. 

Here, where hunger's eager pain 
Pleads at plenty's door in vain ; 
Or, if heard, too often must 
Feel the scorn that flings the crus^- ; 
Thou, gay rover, scarce shalt find 
Chartered feast or welcome kind ; 
For if man to man's austere. 
What hast thou to hope for here ? 

Haste thee, then, where skies are fair, 
Fresh as Spring's the Summer air, 
Bright as tears affection sheds. 
Dews that gem the violet beds, 
Pure as morn the perfumed breeze, 
Sweet the sylvan melodies, 
Soft the glow o'er hill and glade, 
Cool the very noontide shade ; 
And where all of earth and air 
Freely Nature's banquets share ! 

"Hold thee, bard !" the bright-winged cries, 
" Truce to rural rhapsodies, 
Till I briefly tell thee why- 
Hither I came dancing by : 
Seest thou all the vista gay 
Thronged with fashion's proud array ? 
Tinted silks, like Autumn trees. 
Waving brightly in the breeze ? 



TO A BUTTERFLY. 57 



Plume and wreath of brilliant dyes, 
Rich as sunset's golden skies ? 
Ruby, pearl, and emerald green 
Basking in the diamond's sheen? 
These are but my gloss and pride, 
Tints and tinsel magnified ; 
And where gaud and glare abound. 
May not Nature's belle be found ? 

" Mark again the motley throng 
By thy side that sweeps along 
With so gay and smiling guise, 
One might gaze with wondering eyes, 
For some sphered Elysium near, 
Whence such shapes had lighted here. 
Born when Fortune's starry scope 
Cast its brightest horoscope ; 
Heirs of leisure, wealth and will, 
How should they their end fulfil, 
But by idlesse, fancy, show. 
As we rural minions do. 
Whom they sometimes deign to visit ? 
And both rhyme and reason is it. 
That we, too, should not contemn 
In our turn to visit them, 
Nor ourselves unwelcome see 
Where our kith and kindred be !" 



MY FRIEND THE FRIEND. 



Y friend the Friend, of humble birth, 
Of sober garb and sect demure. 
From all the tests of manly worth 

Comes forth, like tried gold, bright and pure. 

The brow that modest broadbrim hides, 
With sculpture's grand ideal suits ; 

And well the mind that there presides, 
Reflects divinest attributes : 

A mind, before whose searching light 

The mists of doubt and error fly ; 
As flee the spectral glooms of night. 

When morning opes her piercing eye. 

But nobler far than noblest mind 

Impalaced yet in mortal clay, 
The great, warm, genial heart enshrined 

Within that quaint drab cut-away. 

58 



MY FRIEND THE FRIEND. 59 

A heart so prone to pity's throe, 

To angel kindness so akin, 
The faintest sigh of human woe 

Is answered ere it well begin. 

My friend the Friend you'll seek in vain 
Where fashion flaunts in noise and glare ; 

But try the haunts of want and pain — 
You will not fail to find him there. 

Yet he, alas ! for three score years, 

Beneath a grievous cross has bent ; 
But never weak, complaining tears 

Have marked the doleful way he went. 

My friend the Friend — nay. Muse, be dumb, 

Or worth its noblest title give ! 
Remember Terence' Hovio Sum, 

And call him friend of all that live. 



THE DOOMED SHIP. 

ORED to the heart, still nobly strives 
The fated bark to foil the wave ; 
As conscious of the precious lives 

Her shattered strength perchance may save. 

Vain hope ! She sinks ! Nay, still she floats, 
For all her burden of despair ! — 

Quick ! babes and matrons to the boats — 
Room for the weak and helpless there ! " 

Not so, brave Luce ! But " save who can " 
Now summons to the desperate strife ! 

What weight has woman more than man, 
In the dread balance, life to life ? 

Stand back, ye pale, dishevelled throng. 
Frail aspens of the ruthless sea ! 

Room for the stalwart and the strong, 
The bearded and the brave to flee ! 
60 



THE DOOMED SHIP. 6 1 

Alas, when woman's feeble hand 

With brawny desperation strives ! 
Boat after boat, swift seized and manned, 

Flies with its freight of craven lives. 

Oh, better die the martyr's death, 

At honor's call, by flood or flame ; 
Than live to taint with coward breath 

A thousand centuries of shame 1 



THE SEA-NYMPHS TO THE DRYADS. 

LINES SUGGESTED BY A COLLECTION OF EXQUISITE SPECI- 
MENS OF ALG^. 



Pontumque per omnem 
Ridebunt virides gemmis nascentibus algae. 

— Claudian. 



E Nymphs ! that haunt the sylvan stream, 
Or gambol on the flowery lea, 
A dreary world, perchance ye deem, 
Is ours within the lonely sea. 

But, sisters, leave your fair sojourn 
Of rustling groves and mossy caves. 

And with your own charmed vision learn 
What beauty dwells beneath the waves. 

Come lay your trustful hands in ours, 
And let us lead you, soft and slow, 

To gardens graced with fairer flowers 

Than earth's most genial climes can show. 
62 



THE SEA-NYMPHS TO THE DRYADS. 63 

There shall ye see the purple palms 

That wave o'er grottoes paved with pearls, 

And vocal with melodious psalms 

From the sweet lips of mermaid girls. 

We've heard what floral beauty lies 

O'er a}(\. your world in vernal days, 
Nor are your rose's scents and dyes 

Unhonored in our Nereid lays ; 

But fate has marred its queenly grace 

With many a disenchanting thorn, 
And storms its tinted charms deface, 

And leave it faded and forlorn. 

But come with us, dear Oread band ! 

To Flora s ocean lawns and bowers. 
Where thorns ne'er wound the fondling hand, 

Nor Winter blights their happier flowers. 

Come where the callithamnian beds 

In vermeil beauty softly sleep ; 
Come where the purple dasya sheds 

A Tyrian splendor round the deep ! 

Where, like a boundless prairie-scene, 

Broad fields of living cladaphore, 
Out-stretched Hesperian isles between. 

Make green the deep's untrodden floor ! 



64 THE SEA-NYMPHS TO THE DRYADS. 

Oh, wisely have your poets sung 

That VENUs' birth-place here must be ! 

For whence could Beauty's queen have sprung 
But from our Eden of the sea ? 



EDITH. 

NTO my quiet life there came one day 
A maiden on the April side of May ; 



Such April as, by grace of kindly Fates, 

Its brighter sister's charms anticipates ; 

And with its buds half opening into flowers, 

Makes us forget the bloom of later hours. 

Shall I pronounce her beautiful ? I could ; 

But let me, rather, simply call her good — 

A little, merry, artless, happy thing. 

At whose bright smile the dullest cares take wing. 

And after years of absence, passed afar 

In those far climes whence springs our Morning 

Star, 
With soft winds wafted o'er the Western main, 
Into my life the maiden came again. 
But noiv, the buds of April's earlier day 
Were all in blossom in her perfect May ; 
Yet if I call her beautiful, the blush 
Of deprecation will her temples flush. 
65 



66 EDITH. 

Well, then, to spare ingenuous maidenhood, 
I'll call my Edith charming as she's good, 
And pray the angels who withheld at birth 
The infant wings when bearing her to earth, 
May long retain them, ere at last they're given 
To waft their sister to her native heaven ! 



THE HOME-VALENTINE. 

TILL fond and true, though wedded 
long, 

The bard, at eve retired, 
Sat pensive o'er the annual song 

His home's dear muse inspired ; 
And as he traced her virtues now 

With all love's vernal glow, 
A gray hair from his bended brow, 
Like faded leaf from autumn bough, 

Fell to the page below. 

He paused, and with a mournful mien 

The sad memento raised, 
And long upon its silvery sheen 

In thoughtful silence gazed ; 
And if a sigh escaped him then, 

It were not strange to say, 
For Fancy's favorites are but men, 
And who e'er felt the stoic when 

First conscious of decay ? 
67 



68 THE HOME-VALENTINE. 

Just then a soft cheek pressed his own 

With beauty's fondest tear, 
And sweet words breathed in sweeter tone 

Thus murmured in his ear : 
" Ah, sigh not, love, to mark the trace 

Of Time's unsparing wand ! 
It was not manhood's outward grace. 
The charm of faultless form or face, 

That won my heart and hand. 

" Lo ! dearest, mid these matron locks, 

Twin-fated with thine own, 
A dawn of silvery lustre mocks 

The midnight they have known : 
But Time to blighted cheek and tress 

May all his snows impart ; 
Yet shalt thou feel in my caress 
No chill of waning tenderness, 

No winter of the heart ! " 

" Forgive me, dearest Beatrice ! " 
The grateful bard replied, 
As nearer and with tenderer kiss 
He pressed her to his side ; 
" Forgive the momentary tear 
To manhood's faded prime ; 
I should have felt, had'st thou been near, 
Our hearts indeed have nought to fear 
From all the frosts of Time ! " 



ARE YOU 'ROUND YET? 

JELL, yes, my friend, I'm still around, 
In spite of Fortune's cruel blows : 
The weed, you know, oft holds its ground, 
In presence even of the rose ! 

Death seems to spurn or quite forget. 
At times, the meanest thing that crawls ; 

The while his dart strikes down the pet 
Adonis of imperial halls. 

Your blurted question doubtless grew 
From wonder, bluntly unconcealed. 

That earth had not yet snatched from view 
This laggard to the Potter's field. 

Am / to quarrel with the fate 

That spares me, howsoe'er abhorred, 

And, with my own hand, antedate 
The severing of ' the silver cord ? ' 
69 



70 ARE YOU 'ROUND YET? 

I'm always fain my friend to please 

In aught that conscience may condone ; 

But life is life, and its surcease 
The All-disposer leaves to none. 

If I had made myself, be sure 

Some traits of worth should stand so clear, 
That even you might still endure, 

Perhaps, my longer presence here : 

For you should see me give their due 
To friend and foe, whate'er it be ; 

And inly feel my debt to you 

Was always less than yours to me. 

But let that pass — the world is wide. 
With room for all and courses meet — 

The broad highroad for flaunting pride, 
The close, shy path for humble feet : 

So we may go our several ways, 
Good strangers, near or far apart ; 

For though the sky be full of days, ♦ 

Not one shall bring us heart to heart. 

To you I leave the shining goal. 
So often won with honor wrecked ; 

I fail, yet failing, will console 
My loss with unlost self-respect. 



ARE YOU 'ROUND VET? J I 

And so my simple faith shall rest 

In this fond hope, as aye before : 
That some, though few, who knew me best. 

Will sigh, when I am " 'round no more." 

ENVOY. 

Friend ! though to careless, common sight, 
A kind word, like the widow's mite. 

Seem but a worthless thing ; 
In all the social marts of love 
Its purchase-power is worlds above 

The coffers of a king ! 



LINCOLN, MARTYR. 



EVER for years, when, closed our closet 
door, 

In voiceless yearning we have bent the knee. 
Have we once failed or faltered to implore 
Less for ourselves than thee. 



For though our feet have pressed a rugged road, 

Where cares grow sorer with each day's decline ; 
How smooth our path, how light our heaviest load. 
Martyr, compared with thine ! 

Perchance some shadow on our little fold ; 

Some golden expectation turned to dross ; 
Some wanton blame, some summer friend grown 
cold — 

These were our sorest cross : 

Thine, the vast burden of a nation's woes ; 

The fate of struggling millions, bond and free ; 
To be upborne amid the frenzied throes 
Of hate and loyalty. 
72 



LINCOLN, MARTYR. 73 

Thy pleading words for peace and brotherhood, 

Impassioned friends perverted or ignored ; 
Wliile foes their pathos madly misconstrued, 
And answered with the sword. 

When steel was silenced in the fierce debate 

Of truth with falsehood, law with anarchy ; 
Failing their country to assassinate, 

They turned and murdered thee ! 

Thee, whose great soul through all these stormy times, 
When steadfast reason from her moorings swung, 
Sought but to save the merciless from crimes 
That palsied mercy's tongue. 

All foulest names e'er coined by ribald scorn 
And linked with curses of demoniac hate, 
Were wreaked on thee, oh, gentlest ruler born 
To freedom's martyr-fate ! 

Yet clothed in truth's impenetrable mail, 

That fears no wound from frenzy's fiercest shock, 
These fell from thee as falls the shattered hail 
From the undinted rock : 

And when the orphaned millions of the West 
Above thy bier their starry emblems furled. 
The wail forlorn, that swelled from breast to breast, 
Went echoed round the world. 



74 LINCOLN, MARTYR. 

The grand, who watched with no benignant eye 

Thy mortal grapple with despotic pride, 
Could not repress the soul's ingenuous sigh 
When the great Tribune died. 

And, till the prairie turf refuse to bloom 

When Spring entreats it with her tend'rest care, 
On all the winds fond thoughts shall seek thy tomb, 
And breathe their requiems there. 



so TIRED. 



ILGRIM, whose path has been so hard and 
dreary, 

So thorn-beset, with clouds so overcast ; 
No wonder, dearest, that forlorn and weary, 
Thy trembling limbs sink under thee at last ! 

" So tired ! " Yet still, oh meekest of cross-bearers. 
How dost thou yearn and wrestle to be strong ! 

Not for thyself, but the beloved wayfarers. 

Whose heavy burdens thou hast borne so long : 

Not through fair scenes of fresh and joyous 
beauty, 

With flowers to catch the foot on every sod ; 
But wormwood wastes, forlorn as human duty, 

Since shut of Eden, ever yet has trod. 

" So tired — so tired ! " Ah, well, a blessed guerdon 
Is surely theirs who triumph in the test ; 

When He who tries them lifts the mortal burden, 
And evermore the weary are at rest ! 
75 



THE MOUNTAIN MONARCH. 

O, empires have flourished, and passed to the 
dead, 

For whose glory the madness of millions has bled, 
Since here, with a sway that no challenge has 

known. 
The blue dome my palace, the mountain my 

throne, 
I have reigned o'er the wilds from whose bosom I 

sprang, 
A sovereign ne'er cursing nor cursed with a pang ; 
While the years that have hurled the rent crag to 

the plain. 
Have but lifted my brow o'er a broader domain ! 

A minstrel as well as a monarch am I, 

And with green-harp in tone with all moods of the 

sky, 
My matins first welcome the advent of Day, 
As he springs from the Morn's golden portals away ; 
And dear to his ear are the hymns I attune. 
When in glory he looks from his palace of Noon , 
76 



I 



THE MOUNTAIN MONARCH- 7/ 

And mine his last smile as he sinks to repose, 
And Eve's jeweled hand draws his curtains of 
rose. 

Man shrinks to his covert on mountain and plain, 

When bursts the wild tempest in thunder amain ; 

But calm as the cliff-pinioned Titan of old, 

I breast the mad onslaught, unshrinking and bold ; 

Assured of my foothold, whatever the shock 

Of the mad winds to wrench it uptorn from the 

rock. 
And never once dreaming of triumph to fail, 
When writhing, convulsed, in the grasp of the gale ! 

Yet the hero, whose locks shall ne'er whiten with 

time. 
Whose bosom still throbs with the pulse of its 

prime — 
Ever green, when my liege groves are leafless and 

dead, 
Ever singing, when all their winged choirists are 

fled— 
Even I, whose throned grandeur so scathless has 

passed 
Through the spears of the lightning, the rage of the 

blast. 
Must fall, and the osprey afar on the deep 
Shall miss his green beacon that waved from the 

steep ! 



yS THE MOUNTAIN MONARCH. 

But the mouldering mounds that enhallow my 

shade, 
Where the red tribes of old their great sagamores 

laid, 
Shall grudge not a couch with their bravest and 

best. 
Mid the gray cairns that grimly stand guard o'er 

their rest ; 
And grand shall my fall be, my death-summons 

meet, 
When far round the echoing mountains repeat : 
" Room ! graves of the mighty — new honor he 

brings — 
Let the dust of the kingly commingle with kings' ! " 



TLEA FOR THE SPOILT CHILDREN. 



EAR simple Uncle Samuel, pray 

Let the spoilt darlings have their way, 
list for this blessed once ! 



^ 



tA 



Why should you mind the old disgrace 
Of making faces to your face ? 
There's nothing mortal in grimace. 
Nor in their taunt of " dunce." 

They've been so used, poor petted dears, 
To storm and swear, for years and years, 

As whim or passion led — 
To answer kind words with a blow, 
Take no for yes and yes for no, 
That if they may no more do so, 

They might as well be dead '. 

I grant they've had an awful spree. 
Sown the wild oats of deviltry 

Broadcast, o'er sea and land ; 
But what a harvest has been theirs ! 
What shocks on shocks of bloody tares 
Insult the sower's blasted cares. 

The reaper's empty hand ! 
79 



I 



HURRAH FOR MEMMINGER ! 

MASTER-RACE ! blest with superlative 
parts, 

You are not only peerless in science and arts ; 
But you top the whole world in mechanical skill, 
And of this the tip-top is your Memminger Mill. 

Not a soul had a sneer for Fourdrinier's brags. 
When he'd got his machine, fed at one end with 

rags, 
To gush, so to speak, at the other, meanwhile, 
With a paper-flood flowing on mile after mile. 

But whereas the Gaul grinds his rags into cash, 
The Memminger grandly converts his to trash 
So perfect, a ton of it doesn't begin 
To pay for a tithe of the " stock " he puts in. 

Yet, month after month, the blind Samson grinds on 
From day-dawn to sunset, from sunset to dawn ; 
Sublimely unmoved, though all Dixie assert 
Each hour yields but sequence of sorrier dirt. 



HURRAH FOR MEMMINGER ! 8 1 

O boss ! of the grand rags-and-lampblack concern, 
By far the best plan you can dream of, to learn 
What's the matter the outcome's so wofully mean, 
Ij — to rnn yourself , bodily, through the machine : 

For, though you may fail the Rag-Imp to discover. 
You'll gain the advantage of being ground over ; 
Or ground deadly fine, which were luckier still 
For the dupes of your infinite Shinplaster-Mill ! 



THE SEER THAT DIDN'T SEE IT. 



HERE was, once on a time, up in Utica 
town, 

A seer of first-rate democratic renown, 
Who, with eyes shut or blindfold, could see more, I 

ween. 
Than by any light, anywhere, is to be seen ; 
And he loved the dark veil from the future to draw, 
That his " friends " might go snacks in the visions 

he saw. 
With the scorn of that termagant Tarquin who rode 
O'er the corse to whose veins her own being she owed, 
He cries : " Look ye there ! Weren't it bliss to behold 
That pampered New England left out in the cold, 
To perish with all the fanatical fools 
That ever were ' brayed ' in her infidel schools ? " 

Then rolling his eyes, like an owl in the sun. 
He groans : " Oh, my friends ! is it anywise fun, 
To see that lean, awkward, unmannerly clown 
Of the White House, his big foot bring squelchingly 
down 

82 



THE SEER THAT DIDN'T SEE IT. 83 

On our Habeas Corpus, Free Speech, and Free Press, 
State nights, and what not, on the plea of war-stress. 
I'm a Seer, and see there is no sort of sense, 
Rhyme or reason at all in this lying pretense ; 
But the aim of a tyrant intent to crush out 
Every vestige of freedom, the rail-splitting lout ! 
And proclaim to his serfs : ' I'm your Lord ! I'm the 

State ! 
Beware, for my will is the fiat of Fate ! ' " 

Here blurted in Daniel of Binghamton : " Pooh ! 

You a seer of visions, Horatio ? — Go to ! 

Were there half of a mole's withered eye in your 
head, 

You couldn't but see yourself verily dead ; 

And had you the ghost of a nose, I'll be bound. 

You would smell yourself ripe for a berth under- 
ground. 

Where your relics, well-bedded in chloride of lime. 

May, perhaps, cease to reek in the nostril of Time ! 

Lo, your friends at the door wait with coffin and 
bier, 

Each an onion in hand to make sure of a tear 

For the leader who had the inglorious lot 

To bring his own hopes and his party's to pot ; 

So, own you're defunct, make believe you're re- 
signed, 

And let yourself sink out of sight, out of mind ! " 



COUNTERFEIT PRESENTIMENT. 

" What the Democratic Party needs is office. — Tammany 
Oracle. 

E'RE sick to death of self-styled Demo- 
crats ! 

Shams, make-believes of infinite concern 
For the dear people's welfare, which, forsooth ! 
Lies just about as near the wheedler's heart, 
As near the wolf's, the welfare of the lamb. 
O that our ears had stops to close at will, 
And balk the shameless wretches, as they bawl 
Their hollow catchwords : Amnesty ! Reform ! 
Whose true interpretation is, Our right. 
Vanquished, to rob the victor of his spoil 
Won in fair fight ; to sink the Ship of State, 
Unless the helm and freight be yielded us ! 
Our right to pardon perjury to God, 
And treachery unparalleled to man ; 
To crush the feeble, fortify the strong, 
And, with a retrospective sympathy. 
Condole with Cain for that fraternal blood, 
Which, somehow, had befouled his innocent hand ! 



COUNTERFEIT PRESENTIMENT. 85 

Men pardon him who tells the honest truth, 

Albeit bluntly, and with slight regard 

Whose self-love may be ruffled by his brass — 

Who calls a crime a crime, a cheat a cheat, 

If conscience bids him designate them thus : 

So when the juggler says, " You see this sword — 

Hey, presto, pass ! " and feints it down his throat ; 

And when, anon, he slips it from his sleeve. 

And frankly shows us how the feat was done, 

A natural impulse prompts us to admire 

Alike his candor and dexterity. 

But when your Democratic mountebank 

Belies his calling, and with saintly whine 

Avers we look in vain to see hbn bolt 

A mustard-seed with that small gorge of his. 

The very while his epigastric crypts 

Outbulge a boa's glutted with an ox — 

'Tis hopeless hard to tell which most to loathe, 

The creature's ravin or his brazen lie. 

He love the people, he their rights respect, 

Who picks their pockets while he pats their back ? 

Who bids them shut their eyes and ope their mouth, 

Then mocks their duped expectance with the shells 

Of precious kernels he will share with none ? 

Who lauds electoral purity with lips 

Sordid and calloused with cajoling bribes ? 

Who, when abroad, reviles Democracy 

And all its hopes and aims ; in full accord 

With haughty bluebloo'ds, banded, heart and hand, 

To prop the gilded dryrot of old thrones ? 



86 COUNTERFEIT PRESENTIMENT. 

Hear him still argue that The Golden Rule 

Stops short at Dixie, has no sanction there, 

Nor ever had, where White is right and might, 

And Black, full warrant for all tyrannies. 

Ye that cry "Kuklux," have ye yet to learn 

That angel visitants have graced the earth 

Ere now, and scattered blessings in their path ? 

Our masking brothers are akin to these ; 

Shielding from harm the friendless and forlorn 

Outcasts for color and the curse of Ham. 

As for the Lost Cause, — why the Scripture smiles 

Approval on the search for what is lost. 

Then wherefore blame them, if they fondly dream 

Of seeking, even by the flash of steel 

And cannon-lightnings, that dear waif again ? 

In war they keenly hankered after peace ; 

Why not in peace now hanker after war ? 

Men are not mountains in their fixities — 

No star that looks on any man to-night, 

Will find him just the same to-morrow eve. 

O charming Democratic paragons ! 

If you do crave return to place and power. 

More than your country's honor and fair fame ; 

If you court ofifice more than you abhor 

Rebellion, treason, murder, perjury, 

And all the lesser crimes that lackey these — 

Why can't you muster manliness enough 

To grace your greed by frankly owning it ? 



COUNTERFEIT PRESENTIMENT. 8/ 

For pity's sake, drop all historic names 

Bequeathed you by true Democratic sires, 

For bright transmission, like the Gheber's flamC; 

Undimmed from age to age ; that so, while still 

Ye grovel on beneath the patriot's scorn, 

Your children may be spared the crimson shame 

Of patronymic titles ; and, when dead. 

Ye curse no stone with graven infamies ; 

But sink at once to sheer oblivion, 

Nameless and beingless for evermore, 

As are the nothings of a dream undreamed ! 



SUMTER. 



w 



OUSED like a Titan from his sleep;, 
The Northmen's gathered might 
Frowns grimly toward the rebel deep, 
Where Justice points the ruffian keep, 
And bids her thunders smite. 

Vengeance has slumbered all too long, 

Unstartled by the cries 
That tyranny can do no wrong. 
Since might is right, oppression strong. 

And only treason wise. 

Lord of the wild waves and the blast, 

Thy favor we implore ! 
Hold them in peaceful durance fast, 
Till wrath's vicegerents leap at last 

Upon the guilty shore : 

Then let remorseless Havoc rain 
Her red bolts, day and night ; 

Till, like the Cities of the Plain, 

No vestige of the curse remain 
Unwhelmed from mortal sight ! 
83 



INVOCATION. 

H for Aladdin's lamp one little hour ! 

To summon hither that prodigious Power, 
Who never let impossibilities 
One moment baffle his weird energies. 
What would we do then ? This we'd say and do : 
" Genius, forgive the task we put you to — 
Unworthy your great stooping, we confess, 
Save that the end redeems its littleness. 
Away down South, the ' sunny South ' — (forsooth ! 
So styled, because there's not a beardless youth 
In all her land, but thinks, like Phaeton, 
Himself could drive the Horses of the Sun 
Better, a heap, than the great charioteer 
Who's held the steady reins since time's first year) — 
Down South, we say, 'mid sands and swamps un- 

blest. 
The Fates have stuck a human hornets' nest. 
Whose fiery tenants, ever on the wing, 
Like Jo's gadfly, ply their maddening sting 
On kith and kindred with exulting spite- - 
The nearer kin the wilder the delight ! 
Sg 



90 INVOCATION. 

Now, potent Genius of the wondrous lamp, 

Whose might no mortal hindranc'es can cramp, 

In pity rid us of the chronic pest 

Of this excrescent human hornets' nest ! 

We grant its suicidal virulence 

Would of itself soon end the foul offence ; 

Yet wait not for that riddance to befall, 

But pluck it up, sands, swamps, stub-palms, and 

all 
Its buzzing venom ; and, as erst you bore 
Aladdin's palace to the Libyan shore. 
And set the foreign wonder on a site 
Far down that land of chaos and old Night ; 
So bear this native nuisance bodily 
A thousand leagues across the tropic sea. 
To some congenial Afric JJallyhack, 
And let it never dream of getting back ! 
Hear us, O stalwart Genius, and obey, 
And your petitioners will ever pray ! 



IMPUDENCE. 

S some brave bark her sails shook out, 
1^ And slowly made wake from the crowded 
pier ; 
Who has not heard the saucy shout 

Of the wherry lad merrily paddling near : 
" Ship ahoy ! where's your line ? bear a hand, ho ! 
Why the deuce can't you, now, give us a tow " ? 

And who has not seen the skipper's face 

Break into ripples, jolly fine ; 
As, touched with some tickle of truant days, 

Anon o'er the taffrail he casts a line 
To the loud little rogue of the tiny craft, 
And, presto ! the eggshell is dancing abaft ? 

But who ever saw, in his wildest dream. 

An Argo, rivalling Noah's ark. 
With acres of canvas and Geysers of steam, 

Make for a pert Liliputian bark ; 
And, dipping its proud pennon low, so low, 
Humbly entreat to be taken in tow ? 
91 



92 IMPUDENCE. 

Why, that is the wonder the world now sees, 

In the old Dominion Valentine 
Made fast by obsequious F. F. V.'s 

To the scrub-palm dug-out, Caroline j 
And constrained to follow her, whithersoe'er 
Liliput madness may please to steer. 

Beware how you venture the Maelstrom's verge. 
Whither Secession pilots your way, 

Or erelong the stress of its vengeful surge 

Will whirl you both down from the light of 
day; 

And your brag, and your rattlesnake flag con- 
sign 

To the lowest deep of the world's vast brine ! 



A VISION OF DIXIE AND DOUGH FACES. 



m 



00 busy by day to go sauntering out 
To see what our turbulent world is about, 
I can only assist at its night-ushered shows, 
When in fancy they visit my attic repose. 

And the strangest of scenes that e'er spell-bound 

my eyes 
With a glamour of serio-comic surprise. 
Was a vision of Richmond that rose yesternight, 
Like a crimson mirage, on my slumbering sight. 

For, as if just emerged from an ocean ot blood, 
Every object seemed stained with the horrible 

flood ; 
While the clouds that gleamed red on hill, hovel and 

hall, 
But deepened the hues which incarnadined all. 

Of the crowds in the street as they jostled and 

swore. 
Not a beggarly rag was undabbled with gore ; 
93 



94 ^ VISION OF DIXIE AND DOUGH FACES. 

But the focus that glared with the bloodiest hue, 
Was the den where scowled Jeff and his Catiline 
crew. 

And lo, while I gaze at this animate clot 
Of murderers, perjurers, thieves and what not, 
Such a ludicrous group at the threshold appears 
As had made even Niobe laugh through her tears ! 

'Twas a set of forlorn Shaking-Quakers — in looks — 
" Fernandy," Vallandigham, Seymour and Brooks ; 
All shad-bellied, broad-brimmed, and meek as you 

please. 
Each waving a thicket of dwarf olive trees. 

And down plump they all on their drab marrow- 
bones. 

As " Fernandy," the spokesman, in ruefullest tones, 

Whimpers : " Take them, Great Jeff, though the 
bearers be worms. 

And oh ! grant us peace on your own royal terms. 

" In our bleak Northern hot-beds, 'mid curses and 
sneers. 

We watered their slow-taking roots with our 
tears ; 

And words can't express, as your highness opines. 

With what toil we scarce got them through Lin- 
coln's grim lines ! " 



A VISION OF DIXIE AND DOUGH FACES. 95 

" Avaunt ! " yelled the conclave ; "make tracks for 

your lives ! " 
As they clutched their revolvers and flashed out 

their knives ; 
" Do you think with such greens to tempt men of our 

brains ? 
Ha ! verdant peace-mongers, here's pay for your 

pains ! " 

And bang ! bang ! bang ! bang ! the red arsenal 
crashed, 

As pell-mell down Shockoe the shad-bellies 
dashed ; 

Skirts straight out behind them, chins ditto be- 
fore — 

Of course I awoke with a side-splitting roar. . 

ENVOY. 

Oh ! yearners for peace, 'twere more wise to re- 
frain 

From hunting the White-Winged in Dixie again, 

Till assured that its Nimrods yourselves wont as- 
sail, 

While crawling to shie the fresh salt on her tail! 



JONATHAN AND JOHN. 

Fee, faw, fum ! 
John Bull is going to come, 
With cannon and ball and bomb, 
To knock our towns into pi 
And ourselves sky-high, . 

Because why ? 
Why, because in one of his sea-chariots 
We found two of our own Iscariots 

Scaping unhung ; 
And having of hemp no lack, 
We ventured to bring them back 
To swing as their namesake swung. 
But the act has roused John's ire, 
And, fifty limes madder than fire. 
He is coming to — don't, John, pray ! 
Your will we will not gainsay, 
But let you have your way. 
And the brace of hoary Judases, 
Nay, all the brazen Theudases 

That rebeldom boasts to day. 
For you seem, John — excuse the mention- 
96 



JON A THAN AND JOHN. 97 

To have an ancient propension 
For a transatlantic traitor — 
An indigenous Yankee hater 
Of kith and kin — 
Now don't begin 

To color, and stammer nay ! 
Do you think we've forgotten, zounds ! 
How you planked down ten thousand pounds 

For our Benedict Arnold, eh ? 
And when you had bagged your prize 
(If history don't tell lies), 

You found your royalty saddled 
With nothing but Dead-Sea apples, and thistles, 
Sow's-ear purses, and pig-tail whistles, 

And golden eggs all addled ! 
For the body and soul, for which you paid 
Such a rousing sum in that West Point trade, 

Even Cockneys valiantly darted, 
Were of all human riff-raff the worthlessest things. 
Save to show that the old saw squints shrewdly at 

kings — 
At least at one Guelph — as it chucklingly sings 

Of *' the fool and his money soon parted ! " 
Hut these two Confederate traitors, 
Pandemonian prestidigitators, 
For whose reclamation, John, you seem about 
To break the Bank of England out and out, 
And send your last " lobster " to pot 
With all your provincial sansculottes — 



98 JON A THAN AND JOHN. 

This brace of unparalleled Thugs 

(Unlike the old dabbler in drugs) 

Is worth all the cost your exchequer endures, 

And the " lobsters " that go to the making them 

yours : 
For Mason can teach evenj>w/r aristocracy 
A sneer as is a sneer at upstart democracy — 
How to run human machines 
With the least outlay of means — 
And, John, if you'll place in his iron grip 
A regular grand plantation-whip, 

This old epidermal afflictor 

Will do all the flagellation 

For the whole British nation 

Without one deputy lictor ! 

And as for \\\& facile princeps of these, 

John Slidell Mephistophiles, — 
(To say nothing of his involuntary knowledge, 
Acquired in the paternal soap-and-candle college, 
Where, without doubt, he became so very wise 
In the concoction of all manner of lyes) (?) 
He can teach how to swell a lean minority 
Into a myriad Plaquemine majority ; 
Can show young Bull hovv to eclipse the lustre 
Of Morgan, Kydd, Cortez, or any grand old fili- 
buster ; 
How to dwarf Catilinean perjury ; 
How to excel in pocket-bleeding surgery ; 

For, John, you may cripple and blind him, 



J ON A THAN AND JOHN. 99 

And he'll find his way to your London hells 
Ere he's been an hour in the sound of Bow Bells, 
And bankrupt their most magnificent swells, 
With one arm tied behind him ! 



M 



BULLY FOR YOU, JOHN BULL ! 

HE schoolmen's donkey that stood stock-still 
Exactly between the two bundles" of hay, 
Whose equal attraction so balanced his will, 

He stirred not a hairbreadth either way ; 
Mohammed's coffin, entombed in air 

Betwixt heaven and earth, a marvelous show, 
Upheld by antagonist forces there 

In a weird, unwavering sfatu quo ; 
The doater whose fondness was halved so well 

By the two gay rivals' buxom charms. 
That which was the dearer he never could tell 

When both, at the same time, wooed his arms ; 
The goodwife who looked with an eye so jus|: 

On the grapple for life of husband and bear, 
That which of the wretches should bite the dust, 

She hadn't the ghost of a wish or care ; — 
All these are but shadows of Bull's " neutrality," 
Bull's unparalleled impartiality 
Toward the belligerent Rebs and Yanks 

Pitted for mutual slaughter ; 
The sweat and blood of whose slashing ranks 



BULL V FOR YOU, JOHN BULL ! lOI 

(Without tlie least squinting at thrift or thanks ! ) 
He would stanch, good soul ! if he only could, 
With the same fond zeal that the devil would 
The leak in a chalice of holy Wcxter ! 

But, John, though your meek, self-oblivious labors. 
Prove you the kindest and gentlest of neighbors. 
It wouldn't be strange if, sometime and somehow, 
You found yourself, caught in a similar row 
To that your " dear cousins " are tussling at now : 
And when, peradventure, you're fast in the hug 
Of some grim Gaul, Celt, Caffre, Russ, Sepoy or 

Thug, 
We Yankees, recalling the boundless excess 
Of your zeal for our weal, can indeed do no less. 

In your mortal distress 
(Being flesh of your flesh, John, and bone of your 

bone), 
Than to build Alabamas to let you alone — 
When you maunder for bread, to respond with a 

stone. 
In the summary style that old Joab displayed 

When he found the young blade. 

By his love-locks betrayed, 
A live target dangling adown the oak shade ; 
And cried out, anon, with exuberant joy, 
" Here's to you, my princeling, my high old boy ! " 

As he let fly a dart 

Right through thorax and heart, 



I02 BULL V FOR YOU, JOHN BULL ! 

And followed it up with another apace, 

That the soul of the traitor might, haply, be 

eased 
With a choice of two wide-enough outlets at least 
To take itself off into space. 

Even so, my dear Bull, we are free to declare, 
If you do not beware 

How you trifle with wrath that not all things en- 
dures ; 

Yankee Doodle at last will, as sure as you're born, 

Drive his shaft, barbed and baned, with unmerciful 
scorn 

Through that cold-blooded, base hollow-muscle of 
yours ! 



DREAM OF THE DEMOS. 

" Das Volk steht auf, der Sturm bricht los." 

KORNER. 

E have had a brave time of it, kings of the 
earth ! 

Since Gog first put purple to clay ; 
And, dying, transmitted his wisdom and worth 
To Magog, entitled by virtue of birth 
To lord it the right royal way. 

And by craft ye've maintained what bluff daring 
began, 

Your grasp on the fairest and best ; 
Consuming the cates, and commending the bran 
To your equals in all that is noblest in man. 

As your consciences needs must attest. 

We are told that of old there was one of your line 

So proud of his pomp, in the East, 
That he deemed himself worthy of homage divine, 
I03 



104 DREAM OF THE DEMOS. 

Till the Lord turned him out to eat grass with the 
kine, 
And grow a respectable beast. 

Perhaps, by the year Nineteen Hundred or so, 

We Demos may come to such pass 
As to rise and bid Messieurs Divine Right and Co., 
Czar, Bourbon, Braganza, Guelph, Hapsburg, all go, 

Like the great king aforesaid, to grass. 

Then ' I'etat c'est moi,' shall be ' I'etat c'est nous,' 

The proud vaunt reversed for the nonce : 
Having had quite enough of grand units like you. 
We fain would just see how King Million would do, 
Both as sovereign and subject at once. 



" WHO WILL THINK OF HENRY ? " 

|0W sadly strange, it seems to me, 

In these gay, smiling hours of Spring, 
That mine the mournful task should be, 
Dear Friend, thy requiem to sing ! 

Thy younger years fair promise made, 
That when the pall fell dark on mine, 

Thy fond regret should soothe my shade. 
As now my dirge would solace thine. 

Full well I knew that worth may not 
To life's swift sands give slower fall ; 

Yet ever, by thy side, forgot : 

Whom the gods love, they first recall ! 

As if, howe'er supremely blest. 

They could but look with jealous eyes. 

On those to whom the summoned guest 
Had proved an angel in disguise. 

Ah well, like breath of cherished flowers. 
That lapse of time but more endears, 

The memory of thy living hours 
Shall sweeten all my coming years ! 
105 



LINES TO A CHRYSALIS. 



USING long, I asked me this : 
" Chrysalis ! 
Lying helpless in my path, 
Obvious to mortal scath 
From a careless passer-by, — 
What thy life may signify ? 
Why, from hope and joy apart, 

Thus thou art ? 



" Nature surely did amiss, 

Chrysalis, 
When she lavished fins and wings, 
Nerved with nicest moving-springs, 
On the mote and madrepore. 
Wherewithal to swim or soar ; 
And dispensed so niggardly 

Unto thee. 

" E'en the very worm may kiss, 

Chrysalis, 
Roses on their topmost stems 
Blazoned with their dewy gems, 
1 06 



LINES TO A CHRYSALIS. 107 

And may rock him to and fro 
As the zephyrs softly blow ; 
Whilst thou liest, dark and cold, 

On the mold ! " 



Quoth the Chrysalis : " Sir Bard, 
Not so hard 
Is my rounded destiny 
In the great Economy — 
Nay, by humble reason viewed, 
There is much for gratitude 
In the shaping and upshot 

Of my lot. 

" Though I seem, of all things born 
Most forlorn, 
Most obtuse of soul and sense. 
Next of kin to impotence, 
Nay, to Death himself ; yet ne'er 
Priest nor prophet, sage nor seer. 
May sublimer wisdom teach 

Than I preach. 

" From my pulpit of the sod. 

Like a god, 
I proclaim this wondrous truth : 
Farthest age is nearest youth — 



I08 LINES TO A CHRYSALIS. 

Nearest glory's natal porch, 
Where, with pale, inverted torch, 
Death lights downward to the rest 
Of the blest ! 

" Mark yon airy butterfly's 

Rainbow dyes ! 
Yesterday that shape divine 
Was as darkly hearsed as mine ; 
But, to-morrow, I shall be 
Free and beautiful as she, 
And sweep forth on wings of light, 
Like a sprite. 

" Soul of man in crypt of clay ! 

Bide the day 
When thy latent wings shall be 
Plumed for immortality, 
And with transport marvelous 
Cleave their dark sarcophagus. 
O'er Elysian fields to soar 

Evermore ! " 



LOOK ALOFT. 

ADDRESSED TO A GIFTED FRIEND, TOO EASILY DISHEART- 
ENED. 

■ Qui ose tout pent tout ce qu'il ose." — Bernard. 

ft^ ^ llVE not thus to listless sadness 
l^^il Hours the partial muse would claim ; 
Up ! and with enthusiast madness, 
Storm the rugged steeps of fame ! 

Not by wishing, but by willing 

O'er the clouds to lift his flag, 
Genius, aim with act fulfilling, 

Proudly climbs the laureled crag. 

Did the youthful Swiss, long dreaming 
Europe's topmost round to scale, 

Sit him down to idle scheming 
In the Arve's murmuring vale ? 

No ; but o'er the glacier pressing. 

Up the granite's icy flank. 
Step by dauntless step progressing, 

Won he, first, thy crown, Mont Blanc ! 
109 



no LOOK ALOFT. 

Be like him a bold advancer, 

Nor the mocking laggard heed — 

Upward ! — from the summit answer, 
" They who win may laugh indeed ! " 

When the Scottish Jove's mad levin 
Laid the noble minstrel low ; 

Swifter tovv^'rd the muse's heaven 
Rose he, strengthened by the blow. 

He who launched at eve the thunder 
On the young aspirant's name. 

Waked to see him throned in wonder 
On the Himmaleh of fame. 

Though than Newstead's bard less gifted, 
Tune thy liarp to higher strain. 

And its voice for truth uplifted, 
Shall a nobler audience gain. 

Ask not, darkly musing, whether 
Glory's dawn be far or nigh ; 

Clash the flint and steel together, 
And the sparks shall flash reply. 

Chance speeds all, the weak assure us, 
On or from the lurking shelf ; 

Nay ! be thy own Palinurus, 
Be thou Fate unto thyself ! 



THE ORANGE TREE. 

LINES TO AN ORANGE TREE RECEIVED FROM THE WEST 
INDIES IN AUTUMN, 

ff^ROM thine Eden of the sea, 
[ELsSil Hapless tree ! 

Where eternal Summer smiles 
On the green Caribbean isles ; 
Borne to this ungenial clime 
In the scowling Autumn time, 
Poor forlorn one, be of cheer, 
Hope is here ! 

Thou shalt find a friend in me, 

Outcast tree ! 
Who will bear thee from the storm 
To a shelter snug and warm — 
An asylum. Winter-proof, 
When the snows assail my roof, 
Or the sleet comes down amain 

On the pane. 



112 THE ORANGE TREE. 

£Icw delights, in sooth, to boast, 

At the most, 
Has our little plain retreat 
In its unpretending street ; 
Save a bird or two, a lute. 
Pleasant books and nooks to suit, 
And three pictures on the wall — 

These are all. 

Yet when rigor rules the year 

Far and near. 
Thou shalt sit beside my hearth. 
And its music and its mirth 
From thy memory shall beguile 
E'en the charms of that dear isle, 
Whose far enchantment gleams 

On thy dreams. 

For the haunt assigned to thee, 

It shall be 
Just the soothest, sunniest spot 
On the noonside of our cot ; 
Where, through all the Winter day, 
Little prattling ones shall play 
'Mid the leafy shade so sweet, 

At thy feet. 

So then, cheerly come with me, 
Exiled tree ! 



THE ORANGE TREE. II3 

And beneath my modest roof, 
Let thy greeting be a proof, 
That to pity's arms and store 
Lo, the peasant's humble door 
With as wide a welcome swings 
As a king's ! 



KUBLEH. 



LUMEN KT NUMEN. 



pHAT beauty smiles from cloudless skies 
When night with twinkling lustre gleams ! 
Yet lovelier far, to these fond eyes, 

The light that from tlay casement beams ! 

The Persian holds the East divine, 
And thither bows on bended knee ; 

But in thy chamber's lighted shrine 
A dearer kubleh smiles for me. 

How oft, when lated and forlorn, 

I've faltered on my darkling way, 
That casement, like the glance of morn, 

Has filled the midnight vale with day ! 

Oh, fair the blush of orient skies. 
And lovely, evening's starry gleams ; 

But dearer far, to these fond eyes. 

The light that from thy casement beams ! 
114 



HANNAH DUSTAN. 

HORN of her stars, lone midnight broods 
O'er Winter's sullen sky, 
Where through the broad New-England woods 

The stormy blast sweeps by ; 
/Vhile from the mountain's jagged walls 
The frost-heaved crag in thunder falls, 

Far echoing to the night ; 
Startling the red fox in his den, 
The roe-buck in the lowland glen, 

The eagle on the height. 

Yet though no welkin beam the while 

Illume that gloomy scene. 
Yon flickering watch-fire's smoldering pile 

Imparts a lurid sheen ; 
Where, couched around its genial glow. 
Outstretched upon the sheeted snow 

Twelve forest chieftains lie. 
Wrapped in the brown bear's shaggy fold, 
Their long knives gleaming keen and cold. 

As gleams the serpent's eye. 
115 



Il6 HANNAH DUSTAN. 

They heed not now the sullen scowl 

Of skies so bleak and drear — 
The owl's wild screech, the wolf's hoarse howl, 

Fall noteless on their ear, 
As there they sleep, toil-worn and grim, 
With belted breast and scarry limb 

Red with the fresh scalp's flow, 
Won when the white foe's roof-tree fell 
With fiery crash and fiendish yell 

And shrieks of mortal woe. 

And who is She, that shivering form. 

So lorn and yet so fair, 
Like some spent angel, whom the storm 

Has forced to shelter there ? 
Faint, famished, worn, and ghastly pale. 
Her dark locks waving in the gale. 

She, trembling, stands dismayed 
Amid those fierce unfeeling men. 
Like fawn that to the panther's den 

In evil hour has strayed. 

Erewhile she blessed the pilgrim's cot 

With love's sequestered joy — 
The Eve of his lone, exiled lot. 

The mother of his boy ; 
So like his sire in form and air. 
When fondly in her wreathed hair 



HA NNA 11 D US TA N. 1 1 7 

He set the bridal rose ; 
But now, nor home nor kin to bless, 
The captive of the merciless, 

She treads the forest snows. 

Still slept the ruffian band, nor stirred 

Amid those flickering gleams, 
Save when, as broke some muttered word 

Upon their startled dreams, 
Some dark hand seized the bow and shaft, 
Or clutched the belt-knife's gory haft, 

As if the foe were nigh ; 
But soon the larum thought passed o'er, 
And sunk the lifted ^rm once more, 

And closed the glaring eye. 

Softly as glides the mother where 

Her sleeping babe reclines. 
So moved that lonely captive ther«^, 

Beneath the moaning pines ; 
As with despair's wild throb she knelt. 
And from the slumbering sacheui's belt 

His ruthless axe unloosed ; 
Her husband's heart had stained the blade. 
And to the haft, by one soft braid, 

Their first-born's scalp was noosed ! 

Then, as one armed with matchless might 
And heaven's vicegerent trust, 



Il8 HANNAH DUSTAN. 

Sent with avenging sword to smite 

The guilty to the dust ; 
She drove the crimson steel amain 
Sheer to the sleeping murderer's brain 

With such destroying hand, 
That when her fearful task was done, 
Gory and gashed, there breathed not one 

Of that remorseless band. 

O woman ! wont in sunny hour 

At thy own shade to start. 
Yet when life's blackest tempests lower, 

High-soul'd and strong of heart ; 
If once that mood is roused by shame, 
Spurned love, wrecked hopes, or blighted name, 

Thy wronger needs beware ; 
'Twere safer that his guilty path 
Confront the whelp-robbed tigress' wrath, 

Than thy untold despair. 



TO THE HILLS. 



Brother bondman of the pen, 
In this old midurban den, 



Where, for weary months intent, 
O'er these dismal tomes we've bent 
Till our backs are well-nigh grown 
To the rigidness of stone ; 
In an atmosphere replete 
With all odors but the sweet, 
And such dissonance uncouth 
That the deafest cit, forsooth, 
Oft must muse, in vain surmise. 
Why the ears, unlike the eyes. 
Have not facile lids to close 
'Twixt the hearing and its woes — 
Brother Helot of the mart, 
With the yearning, homesick heart 
For green Berkshire, let's away 
To the hills one blessed day, 
'I hough the sore bonds sorer strain 
When they have us fast again ! 
119 



I20 TO THE HILLS. 

Ah, just think what careless glee 
Waits our rural vagrancy, 
When the truant feet once more 
Kiss the dear old paths of yore ! 
Think of those white-clovered leas, 
Murmurous with myriad bees, 
Where we've mused in doubt profound^ 
Which were sweeter, scent or sound ? 
Think of arbors draped with vines, 
Near the lake's aeolian pines. 
In whose dim aisles even boys 
Feel the impertinence of noise, 
And steal, tiptoe, as in fear 
Of some mystic presence near. 
Think of sauntering once more 
By the river's willowy shore. 
To the spot where Naiad hands 
Broad have scooped the russet sands, 
For a laver brimmed with lymph 
Meet for daintiest water Nymph 
That e'er plashed the crystal flood 
'Neath the white-armed buttonwood ! 
Doffing there our city gear, 
Starch and gravity austere, 
We'll show urchins thereaway, 
What our fellows meant by " play " — 
Meant by power of lung and tongue. 
When we ancient lads were young. 
Then, with freshened step and mien. 
Ho ! fc>r Ice Glen's weird ravine. 



TO THE HILLS. 121 

Where the mountain, wrenched apart, 

Scarcely hides his mighty heart. 

There, in bastions jagged and gray, 

Winter holds the sun at bay ; 

And in Arctic panoply, 

Mocks all Summer's archery. 

How we'll take the Oread's eyes 

With a marvelous surprise, 

As, in snowball range point-blank, 

Each upon his guarded bank 

Plies projectiles to and fro. 

Till his cheeks are all aglow, 

And his pelted garb is seen 

White as miller's gab.irdine ! ■ 

Brother bondman of the pen, 
In this Babel-shaming den, 
Let us steal ourselves away 
To the hills one glorious day, 
Though the gyves should sorer strain 
When they have us fast again ! 



THE WONDER THAT MIGHT HAVE 
BEEN. 



'©^JRUCE of Kinnaird could scarce repress the 
smile 



That twitched the bearded ambush of his 
mouth, 
When, in his quest of the mysterious Nile, 

Amid the perilous wilds of the swart South, 
An old man told him, with a grave surprise. 

Which made his childlike wonder almost grand, 
How, in his youth, there fell from out the skies 

A feathery whiteness over all their land — 
A strange, soft, sjDOtless something, pure as light. 

For which their questioned language had no 
name ; 
That shone and sparkled for a day and night. 

Then vanished all as weirdly as it came ; 
Leaving no vestige, gleam, or hue, or scent, 

On the round hills or in the purple air. 
To certify their mute bewilderment 

That such a presence had indeed been there. 

122 



THE WONDER. 1 23 

Yet, lady, who that sees, as here revealed, 

The constellated glories of the Stwic, 
From human vision hopelessly concealed 

Till art their hidden splendor deigns to show. 
Can doubt if, when his native banks and braes 

The bronzed and weary Northman trod once 
more, 
Your fairy lens had shown his dazzled gaze 

The whole broad landscape blazoned o'er and 
o'er ■• 

With crystal Stars — ay, who can doubt that he, 

Who at the simple Abyssinian smiled, 
Would, at the sight of this strange galaxy. 

Himself have wondered like a little child ! 



CRADLE COVERLET. 



INSCRIPTION : — FOR A CRADLE COVERLET OF BRILLIANT 
COLORS, EMBROIDERED BY A VENERABLE LADY FOR A FAIR 
IN AID OF THE SANITARY COMMISSION. 



ijjOWED by the weight of fourscore years, 
And blinded by her widow's tears, 



The daughter of a patriot sire 

This earnest sends of fond desire 

Her loving-kindness to attest 

For brothers, stretched in sore unrest 

Along the battle's crimson path 

When the wild storm has spent its wrath. 

She has done what she could — how few 

Have better done, may better do. 

As viewed by Him in whose clear sight 

The offering of the widow's mite 

Appeared more precious, being hers, 

Than gifts of grandest almoners. 

And Pity asks, with pleading tone : 
Who'll make the hallowed prize his own ? 
124 



CRADLE COVERLET. \2% 

For the dear sake of those who pine 
With bitter wounds, that thou and thine, 
Walled by their breasts, mifrht never feel 
The fierce edge of the traitors* steel. 

O wedded pair ! whose cradled love 

Charms like a presence from above, 

What brighter smiles your eyes shall trace 

Upon the slumbering cherub's face 

If, when the angels gather near 

To whisper in his dreaming ear 

The dear Christ's tender benison, 

They mark the sinless little one 

Invested in these tissued dyes 

Lent from their own resplendent skies ! 



THE FALCON AND DOVE. 



ELI. me, friend, the secret meaning 
Mi Of this sculptured riddle, pray ; 
Quoth I to a sexton leaning 
On a tomb at shut of day. 

Open, high embossed, was lying 

Heaven's blest Book of hope and love ; 

And a marble falcon flying 
As in terror from a dove. 

" Sir," replied the sexton hoary, 
Courteously as friend to friend, 
" 'Tis a strange and mournful story, 
Weird and wondrous to the end. 

" Where yon dome-like hill upswelling, 
Proudly lifts its silvan crown. 
Lowers an outlaw's haunted dwelling. 
Shunned alike by thorp and town. 
126 



THE FALCON AND DOVE. 12/ 

" Until passion's stress was over, 
And his sated soul craved ease, 
He had been a desperate rover, 
Coursing all the round world's seas. 

"Wealth he brought at his returning, 
Gold and gems in rare excess ; 
But with whom and whence the earning, 
Few so dull as not to guess. 

*' Swart, and scarred, and grim of bearing. 
Dealt he, flash-like, oath or sneer — 
Every word and look declaring 
Traits that mark the buccaneer. 

" And there came a gentle creature 
To this mountain vale with him ; 
Grief in every pallid feature, 
Pain in every feeble limb. 

" Son he seemed, though faint the semblance 
To that dark and sullen man ; 
Vague as Ariel's resemblance 
To the earth-born Caliban. 

** Ne'er at parting, nor at meeting 
After weary task well done, 
Fond farewell or kindly greeting 
Passed from scowling sire to son : 



128 THE FALCON AND DOVE. 

" Ne'er with keenest aggravation, 
In the hill of stormy ire, 
Words of soft expostulation 

Passed from patient son to sire : 

" As the wife had borne, while living, 
All his insults, mute and mild ; 
So, all bearing, all forgiving, 
Suffered on the silent child. 

" Wherefore should a sire be wreaking 
Outrage on an orphan son ? 
Why, at every moment, seeking 
Anguish for his only one ? 

* Serpent tongues had stung his bosom 

With the rankling lie malign, — 

* What thou deem'st thy being's blossom, 

Is no real germ of thine ! ' 

" Then did Hope's enchanted palace 
Fall in ruins, wall on wall ; 
Then was love's paternal chalice 

Brimmed with hate's envenomed gall ; 

" And how oft, with aim abhorrent, 
Called he, now, to hunt the stag ! 
Leading o'er the swirling torrent, 
And along the dizzy crag ; 



THE FALCON AND DOVE. 1 29 

" To his weary victim shouting, 

When he faltered mid the snares : 
' Coward ! Fear grows bold by flouting — 
Danger strengthens whom it spares ! ' 

" But a form, unseen, was near him 

Ever on his perilled way. 
O'er the dreadful pass to cheer him, 

On the giddy steep to stay. 

" Oft in dreams it rose before him. 
Visibly, a snow-white Dove ; 
And through swooping Falcons bore him 
To a land of peace and love. 

" Foiled in all his fiendish scheming. 
Shrieked the sire with knitted brow 
Wild as tortured guilt in dreaming : 
' Prince of Darkness, aid me now ! 

" ' Take my broad fields black with cattle ! 
Take my glittering hoards diverse — 
All I've wrung from toil and battle — 
Rid me of this living curse ! ' 

" Lo, a flash and crash of thunder 
Whelm the bitter words apace ; 
And a Shape of startling wonder 
Glooms before him, face to face. 



130 THE FALCON AND DOVE. 

" ' Lost,' it scowled, ' is all such suasion ! — 
Gold nor gems my power control — 
These are mortals' bright temptation ; 
Mine, a brighter lure, the soul : 

" ' Not thy soul, poor wretch, that pratest 
Of thy herded lands and pelf. 
But the soul of him thou hatest — 
Thine is coming of itself ! 

" ' Where thy new-sown fields are greening, 
Send him forth at blush of day, 
Charged, with threats- of mortal meaning, 
Keep the wasting fowls at bay ! ' 

" ' Be it so,' the father muttered ; 
And, ere echo's nimble tone 
Half the fiat had reuttered. 
Pale and grim he stood alone. 

" Forth upon his fated mission 

Fared the friendless child forlorn, 
Menaced with assured perdition, 
If he failed to ward the corn. 

" Vain, alas, was his endeavor 
To obey the dire behest ; 
For the winged marauders never 
Left him briefest space for rest ! 



THE FALCON AND DOVE. I31 

" When he chased them from the valley, 
Swarmed they on the upland grain ; 
Soon, when frighted thence, to rally 
In the vale's green lap again. 

" Still, with patient zeal, unshaken 

He j)ursued his endless round, 
• Till at last of strength forsaken. 

Dropped he, swooning, to the ground. 

" Lo, a strange form now beside him. 
And a white dove hovering near ! 
This, with yearning anguish eyed him, 
That, with ill-dissembled leer. 

" Then with unabashed assertion, 
False as foul, the glozer said : 
' Long I've marked thy vain exertion, 
And am come to bring thee aid. 

" ' But as meed of faithful merit, 

When thy life's last moment dies. 
Let me, for my own, inherit 

That which o'er the threshold flies ! ' 

'' Sighed the youth : ' Kind sir, that taskest 
Time and strength to succor me ; 
Though I wist not what thou askest, 
Be it thine whate'er it be ! ' 



132 THE FALCON AND DOVE. 

" Sudden as an aspen's tremblance, 

Changed the Tempter form and face. 
And a coal-black Falcon's semblance 
Dusked the sunlight in his place. 

" Prince of air and all its minions, 
As of demon realms below, 
Up he shot on whirring pinions, 
Swift as arrow from the bow. 

" On he swept with fiery keenness, 
Now in tangent, now in whirl ; 
Till o'er all the sprouting greenness 
Hovered throstle, crow nor merle. 

" Then young Eve with rosy features, 
Bade the child no longer stay ; 
And her fire-flies' fairy meteors 
Homeward lit his lonely way. 

" ' Laggard ! ' cried the execrator, 
' Why so late returned, I ask — 
Have you truant played or traitor ? 

Skulked, or shirked your bidden task ? ' 

No, my father ; watched I truly ; 
Watched and strove to guard the grain ; 
But thy quest to answer duly. 
All my strivings were in vain. 



THE FALCON AND DOVE. 1 33 

" * Till a stranger kind befriending, 
Sought me at the noon of day, 
And on raven wings ascending, 
Chased the hungry hordes away.' 

** * Imp, with demon malice gifted, 
Take a tithe of thy unworth ' ' 
And the tyrant's arm uplifted 
Smote the guiltless to the earth. 

" Like the bloodroot's snowy blossom 
Dabbled in its crimson flood, 
Lo, the pallid brow and bosom 
Weltering in their own warm blood ! 

" On the morrow, lone and dying, 

Gazed the child with wondering fear, 
On a pall and coffin lying 
At his bedside on a bier. 

" Glaring eyes, the while, were keeping 
Watch within the open door. 
And a fiend-like shadow sleeping 
Grimly on the sunny floor. 

" Suddenly the watcher started. 
Shape and shadow fled amain, 
As the White Dove weirdly darted 
Inward through the lifted pane. 



134' THE FALCON AND DOVE. 

" Round she flitted, moaning ever : 
' Who of earth can sum thy loss, 
If, when soul from body sever, 
Thine yon fatal threshold cross ? ' 

" JVo7a his promise to the stranger, 
When he paltered at his side. 
Woke the sufferer to the danger 
By these awful words implied ; 

' And he cried \vith wild endearment : 
' Hear me ! save me, sexton ! hear ! 
Fold me in my ready cerement, 
Lay me on my waiting bier ! 

' ' O'er the dreadful threshold bear me 
Forth beneath the blessed sky ; 
Let not — oh, for mercy, spare me ! 
Life and soul together die ! ' 

*' Cried the rufifian murderer : ' Never ! 

Hush thy mongrel, maundering breath ! 
Ma.y thy life and soul forever 
Perish utterly in death ! ' 

" Backward on his couch astounded, 
Fell the child in mortal fear ; 
As if breaking heart-strings sounded 
Knell-like in his dying ear. 



THE FALCO.V AND DOVE. 1 35 

" Here my waiting pages entered ; 
And, despite threats, curses wild. 
All our fondest cares we centered 
On the friendless, hopeless child. 

" Tenderly we raised and laid him 
In his cotifiin on the bier, 
Tenderly we thence conveyed him 
To tlie green lawn smiling near. 

" There, as softer grew his breathing. 
Faintly dawned a hectic smile. 
O'er the woful pallor wreathing 
Flush of inward peace the while. 

" Then before his placid vision, 

Oped we clear the Book of Truth, 
Where the Saviour's sweet decision 
Spake these words of tenderest ruth ; 

" Saying : ' Suffer, unforbidden. 
Little ones to come to me ; 
For in such, howe'er ye've chidden, 
Earth finds heaven's best simile.' 

" Sudden now the light was parted 
By a shadow from above, 
As the coal-black Falcon darted. 
Bolt-like, at the watchful Dove ; 



^6 THE FALCON AND DOVE. 



" While, his shrouded form half raising, 
Like the widow's son of Nain, 
Sat the child, intently gazing 
On the eerie, eager twain. 

" Now, aloft, they glanced and grappled, 
Now beneath the bier they met, 
Till the lawn around was dappled 
With their plumes of white and jet. 

" Twice the worsted Dove was routed, 
Twice her fiendish foe she fled ; 
And the gloating ruffian shouted : 
' Bravely, Falcon, hast thou sped ! ' 

" Braver yet is love's endurance — 

Love in faith's proof armor braced ; 
I replied, with fond assurance : 
' Lo, Uie chaser now the chased ! ' 

" Swift through cloudland's blue dominion 
Fled the Falcon, round and round, 
Till the white Dove's swooping pinion 
Dashed him, cowering, to the ground. 

" Down he vanished, as asunder 

Gloomed the ebon jaws of night ; 
And a deafening shout of thunder 
Shook the mountains at the right ; 



1 



THE FALCON AND DOVE. I 3/ 

" Whence a hollow voice came booming : 
' Let the brat escape my lure; 
Since the sire awaits my dooming, 
Hither following, soon and sure ! ' 

" As we homeward thence were wending, 
In the calm bright skies above, 
Saw we, side by side ascending, 

Dovelet white and snow-white Dove ! 



IN MEMORIAM. 



N my young days a traveled stranger chanced 
To visit Berkshire, in his earnest quest 
Of that arcadian heritage, which Hope, 
With rosy finger pointing, tells each heart 
Awaits it surely in the near beyond ! 
The fairest scenes whereon the morning smiles 
With lingering gaze in many an orient land. 
Had set their soft enchantments to his eye. 
And whispered, " Seek no farther : " yet he passed 
Still onward, till his feet at last were stayed 
Within the magic circle of these hills. 
Here was the Eden he had sought so long ! 
Here had his dream come true, and never more 
Could fancy shake his faith, that all the vales 
Of the wide world could boast no peer to this ! 
And here, like one imparadised, his life. 
Exempt from idle longings and replete 
With daily satisfactions, thenceforth lapsed 
As gently as a placid stream that steals 
O'er smoothest sands to its appointed bourne. 
138 



IN MEMORIAM. 1 39 

If such the local spell on sense and soul 
Of this grave stranger, that he gave himself 
A willing captive to these alien scenes, 
And here would live, here die ; impassive, deaf 
To all the pleadings, all the memories 
That woo the wanderer to his native land ; 
Were it not strange that they, whose eyes had gazed 
From childhood on these charms of hill and vale. 
Could ever leave them to return no more ? 
Yet, to my thought, your heroes' absence seems 
Less strange than would their presence here to-day ; 
Had they not heard, in duty's still small voice. 
The voice of God and country, and at once 
Wrenched loose their hearts from every dearest tie. 
And marched right onward, even unto death ? 
How could they falter when, that April morn, 
The South wind whispered : " War is in the land ! 
I heard the thunder of his iron tramp ; 
Saw the keen flash of his relentless steel 
Affright the white-winged Peace from out her palms ; 
And fled his frenzied presence, as he strode, 
Dark frowning. Northward, and with lips ablaze 
Fulmined his fierce anathemas on all. 
Forewarned, confront him far off, ere he fall 
FuUswing, resistless, on yourselves and yours ! " 

Then, as the rattling larum of the drum 
Rolled through these startled vales, uprose the 
might 



140 IN MEMORIAM. 



t 



Of Berkshire's martial manhood, and went forth 
With stern face set as flint against the foe ; 
Despite the clinging of impassioned arms, 
The pressure and the pleading of pale lips, 
Whose farewells seemed the knell of Hope herself. 

And ah ! too truly, as the vacant seat 
By hearth and board of lonely cottages 
And social village mansions, sadly tells ! 
As tells more sadly still, the unheaved turf 
Whence springs yon sacred column — turf forlorn, 
That while its verdure wraps earth's common 

sands, 
It may not fold your martyrs' precious dust. 
No eye but that which marks the sparrow's fall, 
Saw theirs, perchance, or ever shall discern 
The places hallowed by their martial dust. 
On lonely picket-guard beneath the stars, 
Or in the starless watch of leaguered camps 
Impalled in double gloom of night and storm, 
They fell unseen ; or in the battle-cloud 
That dusks the blazing splendor of the noon. 
Passed from their comrades' sight, as to and fro. 
Whelming or whelmed, the swaying legions surged ; 
Or, fate's worst fate, were swept to nameless 

graves 
From wards whose balms were blasphemies, whose 

shrift. 
Curses gnashed fiercely into dying ears ; 



IN ME MORI A M. 1 4 1 

Or tumbreled forth from fiendish prison hells, 
Gaunt, hunger-bitten skeletons, where Death, 
In all his horrors, less abhorrent seemed, 
Than had the ghastly life that perished there. 

Ah, friends ! it were a mournful joy indeed, 
Had fate but granted to your yearning hearts 
The dear, disjewelled caskets, though no more 
To beam with' light unknown to sun or star. 
How fondly had ye welcomed even these ! 
How tenderly consigned them to the rest 
Of yon still chambers of the funeral sands ; 
And felt their gloom illumined with the hope 
That there your relics would be laid with theirs 
For earliest recognition, face to face — 
Face to face smiling with immortal smiles ! 

But though ye know not where the loved ones 

sleep, 
On dreary downs or sunny inland glades, 
By marge of lone lagoon or mountain stream, 
Or in the dusk of ever-moaning pines ; 
Know that, wher'er it be, their rest is sweet ; 
Their couch assured of the great Mother's care. 
Though there no human eye e'er drop a tear ; 
No hand bring flowers or germ of future flowers ; 
She, at whose all-sustaining breast were nursed 
These Abels, murdered by fraternal hate 
At duty's very altar, shall keep green. 



142 IN MEMORIAM. 

With tempered largess of her dews and rains, 
The turf that shelters their uncoffined dust ; 
Or, when the year's disheveled tresses lie 
Unsightly there,, shroud all in spotless snows ! 

So, while to these maternal ministries 

Sadly we leave the unreturning brave 

Where the red battle left them stark and cold ; 

Be ours the solace that they nobly died, 

As ours the sacred duty to make sure 

Their martyrdom shall not have been in vain ! 



« 



BRIDEGROOM TO BRIDE. 



S'^MBARKED at last, dear trustful wife, 
, »^BI Before us, lo ! the voyage of life, 
With all the hopes, and doubts, and fears, 
That hover round our pilgrim years ! 
Yet, cheered with happy auspices 
And fondest " Benedicites," , 
Let us serenely, side by side, 
Confront the dim and undescried. 

O Sea ! that spread'st so smoothly now 
Thy azure fields before our prow, 
We know how soon the storm may chase 
The shimmering dimples from thy face. 
And even 'mid thy sunniest isles. 
Supplant with frowns thy wonted smiles. 
Yet, knowing this, we will not fear 
Or storm or peril, far or near ; 
Sure in our faith, oh, faithless sea, 
That howsoe'er our bark may be 
Tossed by thy waves' tempestuous will. 
They must obey His " Peace, be still ! " 
143 



HARD-HANDS' PETITION. 

HE chance to toil is all we ask ; 
O brothers, only this ! 
No matter what or where the task, 
It will not come amiss. 

The lesser load or lighter strain, 

We stand not to discuss — 
The task may go against the grain, 

And yet be dear to us. 

Ungloved, the roughest thole we grasp, 
Nor burr, nor prickle heed ; 

The nettle in our horny clasp 
Is but a silken weed. 

We rather earn the crust we're fed, 

In fens or squalid slums ; 
Than idle break the beggar's bread, 

Or twirl the pauper's thumbs. 

Then grant the earnest toil we ask. 

Nor long the boon defer — 
Who gives the poor an honest task. 

Is God's best almoner ! 
144 



NEVER FEAR! 



\N the journey of life never falter nor fear, 
Tliough danger may threaten an ambush of 
woes ; 
If plainly the pathway of duty appear, 

Right on ! though it lead through a forest of 
foes. 

The clouds that loom up in the distance so cold. 
Are blessings there falling in silvery showers ; 

And the vales far away, now so drear to behold. 
Will change, as you near them, to vistas of flowers. 

Yet should welkin and landscape but deepen the. 
gloom 

They wore at the first, as the distant you win, — 
Even then, friend, shall Hope, like the firefly, illume 

The gloom of the outward with beams from within. 

And ponder not solely of Self as you go. 

For thousands, your brothers, move on by your 
side ; 

145 



H^ NEVER FEAR ! 

Have a smile for their gladness, a sigh for their woe, 
A shame in their weakness, a pride in their pride. 

Lend a hand to the feeble that totters to fall ; 
Speak cheer to the weary, o'erburdened with 
care ; 
From youth's eager lip snatch the chalice of gall ; 
From beauty's charmed footfall, the myrtle- 
wreathed snare. 

Let us strive, though of dust unto dust to return. 
As the flower to the sod whence it sprang to the 
day. 

That all yet to traverse life's desert, may learn 
Our course by the roses we left on the way. 

Though rugged the pathway and darkened the 
goal, 
With hope for the future and conscience the 
past. 
Never fear, never doubt in the depths of the soul, 
That, spite of fate, all will be well at the last ! 



\ 



TO A FUNERAL WREATH. 

H, snow-white Wreath ! that graced but 
now 

Our dear Lucinda's shrouded rest 
Not fairer than her marble brow, 

Nor purer than her stainless breast — 
Would that thy flowers, so sacred made 

By that chaste shrine whereon they lay, 
In holier beauty thus arrayed. 
Might never feel nor fear decay ! 

But, no, alas ! though tears like rain 

Upon thy blossomed circlet fall. 
Love's fondest tribute were in vain 

To stay the blight that steals on all ! 
Admonished by that mortal shrine. 

How could we for a moment trust 
That happier fate might yet be tliine, 

Than hers — our dearest's — Dust to Dust ! 

Nay, were the magic virtue ours. 

Oh, snow-white Wreqth, so freshly blown ! 
147 



148 TO A FUNERAL WREATH. 

To change thy frail memorial flowers 
To kindred forms of Parian stone » 

Amid our world of cypress glooms, 
Where life strives vainly with decay ; 

Alas, even these marmoreal blooms. 
With crumbling years must pass away ! 

But thanks, dear friends, that when her feet 

Crossed the Dark Stream that waits for ours, 
The dear one left our memories sweet 

With love's imperishable flowers — 
Flowers of a soul whose happiness 

Consummate bloomed in grateful eyes ; 
Whose constant thought was how to bless, 

Whate'er the stern self-sacrifice ! 



CENTRAL PARK. 

|F all the gracious deities 

Ascribed of old to land or sea, 
The god of Metes and Boundaries 

Henceforth shall be extolled by me ! 
For him Til choose the fondest name 

The Muse in happiest mood can frame ; 
And round it wreathe, in grateful lays, 

Her choicest flowers of love and praise. 

For when the Commerce of the West, 

Her Empire mart majestic piled, 
Nor recked how soon she thence might wrest 

The last green rood where Nature smiled ; 
Lord Terminus, at once obeyed. 

The spoiler's march thus sternly stayed : 
'* Behold thy utmost bounds at last — 

Thus far, no farther, shalt thou blast ! 

" On all sides round this sacred pale. 
Be thine to ravage as of yore — 
To lop the hill, to whelm the vale, 
And stifle all, from shore to shore, 
■ 149 



I 50 CENTRAL PARK. 

A¥ith stately halls where anxious pride 
But dreams the peace to pomp denied ; 

Or slums, whose horrors well may crave, 
For blest surcease, the pauper's grave ! 

" But all witJiin this ample bound, 

This central sweep of lawn and lea, 
Henceforth is consecrated ground 

Till earth herself shall cease to be. 
No blast shall rend its living rock ; 

No rumbling wain its echoes shock ; 
Nor sound of hammer, trowel, plane, 

Its silvan sanctities profane ! 

" Let no vain schemer dare deface 

Creation's master-touches here, 
But Nature's every gift and grace 

In all their virgin charms appear ; 
Save where congenial taste may serve 

To teach the stream a lovelier curve, 
Or path a happier course to choose 

Where beauty veils still fairer views. 

" No cruel act, no ribald speech. 

These peaceful shades shall e'er attest — 
Within the schoolboy's easy reach 

The bird shall build and brood her nest ; 
Nor shall the fawn to covert fly, 

When merriest groups go laughing by ; 



i 



CENTRAL PARK. 151 

But fearless in the wayside grass, 
Behold the jocund wonder pass. 

"The turf shall teem with fairest flowers, 

E'er brought by guardians from the skies 
'J'o cheer their sublunary hours 

With bloom and breath of paradise ; 
While murmuring streams and tuneful birds, 

And soft winds sweet with lovers' words. 
And music's, sculpture's charms unite 

To thrill all bosoms with delight. 

" What various forms of urban life 

Of every age, and sex, and sphere. 
Shall daily steal from toil and'strife, 

To find lost Eden's blessings here ; 
To breathe large breath of balmy air ; 

Meet health and beauty everywhere ; 
And feel a tingling rapture dart. 

In every pulse of Nature's heart ! 

" The noblest feast to mortals known, 

Is spread not for the palate's slaves — 
' Man shall not live by bread alone ; ' 

His soul diviner nurture craves ; 
And here, in these serene retreats, 

It shall not lack abundant sweets 
In every sight, and scent, and sound — 

Pure manna mantlins; all around ! " 



» 



TO A MINIATURE. 

HE pictured face still wears the charm 
Her real presence used to wear, 
When, circled by my loyal arm. 
She let me gaze enchanted there. 

But since no more with dimpled wiles, 
She deigns my fondness to betray ; 

Why cherish these unchanging smiles, 
Whose fickle types have passed away ? 

A dearer arm now circles her ; 

Her beauty wiles a dearer heart — 
Ah ! lost love's vain remembrancer ! 

'Tis time for thee and me to part. 

Go, then ! nor shall resentment find 
A harsher wish to send with thee, 

Than that thy presence may remind 
How fondly once she smiled on me ! 
152 



TO MEMORY DEAR. 

HERE'S not a common pebble that hath 
been 

For long a daily presence in our sight, 
But memory values, when no longer seen, 
As it had been a very chrysolite;. 

No little cherished flower of plainest dyes 
Eludes our wonted smile and disappears, 
Whose absence is not marked with wistful sighs, 
Or, haply, even with the dew of tears. 

But the void of a beloved face^ 

That dearer grew with every passing hour, 

For some new aspect of angelic grace, 

Some sweeter bloom of love's incarnate flower ! 



153 



TO ELIZABETH ON HER SECOND BIRTH- 
DAY. 

PENING bud of vernal life, 
Watched with smiles and tears ! 
Changing with the fitful strife 

Of love's hopes and fears — 
Hopes that, with enchanting eyes, 
Whisper of elysian skies, 
And a sunny path, which lies 

Through a world of bloom ; 
Fears that frown in hope's despite, 
Muttering wild of storm and night, 
And the swift untimely blight 

Of an early tomb ! 

Hope still speaks thy weal to Fear, 

Fear to Hope thy woe ; 
Which will prove the wiser seer, 

Time alone can show : 
I have learned that both may be 
Prophets false of destiny, 
154 



TO ELIZA BE Til. 1 5 5 

Seeing what no ken can see 

In life's forward sky ; 
But, as onward still Ave grope, 
Let us fondly trust that Hope 
Hath thy fate's dim horoscope 

Read with truer eye. 

Yet in such a changing scene, 

Though thy lot be bright, 
Clouds shall frequent pass, I ween. 

O'er thy spirit's light : 
Maiden prime will bring its snares ; 
Riper years their matron cares ; 
Time at broadcast scatters tares 

Where he sows the flowers ; 
And in spite of our endeavor 
Loathed from lovely to dissever, 
Side by side they twine, and ever 

Mingled crop is ours. 

Beauty like a glory lies 

O'er thy being now. 
Mirrored in thy glad blue eyes, 

And thy cherub brow. 
Wreathed with many a glossy tress 
Of such amber loveliness 
As no poet can express. 

Paint he e'er so well ; 
And the budding lip, that shows 



156 TO ELIZABETH. 

Less of ruby than of rose, 
And the dimpled cheek, which glov/s 
Like the rose-steeped shell. 

Nursling of a rugged clime, 

These are now thy dower ; 
But o'er these the despot Time 

Hath a demon's power ; 
Speed can never foil his flight, 
Darkness muffle from his sight, 
Strength nor beauty stay his might, 

Though an angel plead ; 
Nature's self is but his thrall — 
Oak and adamantine wall 
At his ruthless summons fall 

Like a smitten reed. 

Yet to wisdom's clearer sight, 

Murmur as we may, 
Seems it vain to mourn the blight 

Of the flowers of clay ; 
Frailer and less fair than those 
Which their tender charms disclose 
By the marge of lingering snows, 

In some sunny vale ; 
Ere the earliest warblers bring 
Tidings of the loitering Spring, 
And while Winter's icy wing 

Shivers on the gale. 



TO ELIZA BE TH. I 5 7 

Therefore, fairest, do not trust 

To so vain a stay ; 
Beauty's but a nicer bust 

Of earth's common clay ; 
Born to no diviner mood, 
Finer nerve or richer blood, 
Than her favored sisterhood, 

Humbler gifted, are ; 
Hour by hour her graces fly ; 
Fast her cherished roses die ; 
And the glory of her eye 

Setteth like a star ! 

But thy being's nobler part, 

Inly throned to reign 
O'er the many-passioned heart 

And the restless brain — 
Give to ///^/o'ermastering power, 
When the Will would snatch the flower 
From temptation's upas bower, 

Though the asp be seen 
Coiled within its charmed dyes — 
And, when earth in chaos lies. 
Thou above the wreck shalt rise, 

Scathless and serene ! 



LINES 

to a dear friend, with a plain copy of 
Bryant's poems. 



I 



i 



M 



HOUGH unadorned with pictured charms, 
With fretted gold, or flashing gem ; 
I deem that friendship's thoughtful eye 
Will not my simple gift contemn. 

For lacks it not intrinsic worth, 

Beyond the pride of wealth or art — 

The beauties of a polished mind, 
The graces of a gentle heart : 

One that, like Numa, oft has borne 

From haunted fount and voiceless glen. 

The wisdom of a wiser lore 

Than marks the babbling schools of men : 

One who hath drawn from passing bird, 
From falling leaf, and drooping flower, 

Thoughts that shall light the memory's shrine. 
Till life's remotest hour : 

158 



LINES TO A DEAR FRIEND. I 59 

One whose chaste pen ne'er traced a line 

To virtue false, to license dear ; 
Which manly pride miglit blush to read, 

Or maiden purity to hear. 



LINES 

ON REVISITING BERKSHIRE LATE IN AUTUMN. 

OW slow the moons have waxed atid waned, 
111 How dim their alien beams to me, 
Since, fast in urban durance chained, 

Dear Mountainland, I've pined for thee ! 

When last, beneath these native skies, 
I gazed on hills and vales so dear. 

The charm of Eden's vernal dyes 

Seemed mirrored in the landscape here. 

The clover's breath embalmed the breeze, 
That danced from sunny knoll to knoll. 

Repaying with the hum of bees 
The shades where sang the oriole. 

But now, alas ! how changed the scene ! 

No warbling woods, no murmuring blooms, 
No groves with rustling arras green. 

The pride of summer's silvan looms ! . 
160 



LINES ON REVISITING BERA' SHIRE. l6l 

Yet dearer, in their silent woe, 

Are these brown wastes and wilds to me, 
Than all the gorgeous pomp and show 

Of that great mart beside the sea. 

For let me feel beneath my feet, 

O native soil ! thy quickening thrill ; 

And I, too, like the famed athlete, 

Thence gain new strength to wrestle still — 

Still sorely toil, that wealth may fling 

Fresh ingots on his swollen heap ; 
Still cope with cares, whose ruthless sting 

Disturbs the very death of sleep ; 

With little means and large desires 

Conflicting in the silent mind. 
That oft, in happier mood, aspires 

Its own fond tasks and times to find, 

And be what manly pride commands, 

Life's nobler mission to fulfil — 
No passive tool in sordid hands 

To work its wielder's reckless will. 



DEATH. 

LL ! thou rememberest all 

Earth's breathing forms of every 
name and lot ; 

And bear'st the sable pall 
With equal hand to palace and to cot, 
Where pines the monarch on his pampered throne, 
Or cowers the outcast watched by want alone ! 

Bravely the eagle's plume 
Bestems the gale, and sunward lifts his form 

Above the flashing gloom, 
And volleyed terrors of the rushing storm ; 
Yet vain that soaring wing's exulting might 
To pass the range of thy dark arrow's flight. 

Wide o'er the polar waste. 
Where life shrinks back from Winter's ghastly 
towers ; 

Wide o'er the green zones graced 
With all the glorious blazonry of flowers, — 
Yea, o'er each span of ocean's dark domain, 
Are spread the trophies of thy conquering reign. 
162 



DEA TH. 1 63 

Empires of old renown. 
Like giant phantoms, all have passed away— 

The Macedonian's crown, 
The Caesar's pomp, the Goth's avenging sway, 
Awake no terrors now, whilst every knee 
Still bows in trembling fealty to thee ! 

Afar the tempest flings 
Its warning thunders on the startled gale. 

And far the simoom's wings 
Forecast the portent of its coming bale ; 
But thou, O dread, inexorable foe ! 
Sendest no herald of thy mortal blow. 

Where the glad wine is quaffed, 
And dance and song the giddy banquet crown, 

Thou bear'st thy ruthless shaft, 
Assassin-like, to strike thy victim down ; 
Perchance the maid betrothed, or blushing bride, 
Or laurelled idol of a nation's pride. 

While bending o'er his lyre. 
In the deep hush of night's inspiring reign, 

Flushed with celestial fire 
The mortal minstrel wakes his deathless strain ; 
Thy hand, relentless at the purposed ill, 
Arrests life's silver chords, and all is still ! 

Where guilt with innocence. 
And pomp with squalid misery jostling meets ; 
Thou, robed in pestilence, 



1 64 DEATH. 

At noonday stalkest through the shuddering streets ; 
Till all is hushed where crowds were wont to tread, 
Save the lone hearseman's call, " Bring forth your 
dead ! " 

Nor smites thy swifter dart, 
O blinded archer of the random aim ! 

The sere and leprous heart, 
For years and years the haunt of sin and shame ; 
Nor his, whose mad ambition's ruthless flood 
Dyes nations crimson in their noblest blood : 

Thou mak'st tli insatiate grave 
Thine earlier garner for the pride of eartli ; 

The wise, the just, the brave, 
The fair, the loved, — yea all of proven worth, 
Thou snatchest from affection's scanty store, 
Nor to its yearning breast return'st them more ! 

Yet to the pure in heart, 
Who through temptation's many-sirened sea, 

By faith's revealed chart 
Have shaped their perilled course unfalteringly, 
Thou, like a pilot, welcomely dost come, 
To bring life's weary bark to its last haven home ! 



WAITING FOR MORNING AT PROFILE 
MOUNTAIN. 



CARCE other token than the low sweet chant 
Of unseen birds announced the coming 
dawn ; 
As, all impatient of the lingering night, 
To this weird lake I groped niy eager way. 
I know the mountain giants are encamped 
About me, scarce a bowshot from my feet ; 
While yet no intimation is vouchsafed 
Of presences so wondrous and so near. 
Patience, O longing eyes ! for soon this gloom 
Shall be transfused with floods of silvery sheen 
Poured from the golden chalice of the morn ; 
And all this now invisible array, 
Stand forth in clear apocalypse sublime. 

At last, O joy ! at last, hope long deferred 
Becomes fruition as the darkness melts. 
The gray mists vanish, and the dismal void, 
Anon, is one vast sea of crystal air ! 
Rapt, motionless, oblivious of self, 
165 



1 66 MORNING AT PROFILE MOUNTAIN. 



I gaze on these imperial Sovereignties 
With all the wonder of a waking child, 
Whose last sight was dear faces ; whose first, now, 
Phantoms more strange than thrilled his wildest 
dreams. 



{ 






But who art Thou, whose throned sublimity 
O'erkings these Titan majesties, and takes 
Captive the gazer's soul with nameless awe ? 
Few are the stormy centuries that have swept 
Athwart thy cliff-hewn brother of the Nile ; 
And lo, a formless and disfeatured mass 
Is all the sculptured marvel that remains 
Of man's eidolon of Cyclopic man ; 
Whilst over thy immortal lineaments, 
O Memnon of the Mountains ! harmlessly, 
As the cloud's shadow o'er the granite glides. 
Millions of years have passed, and left thy face 
Clear-cut and sharp against the azure sky ! 
Thy lifted brow fronts Eastward, whence arise 
The Shining Ones whose coming, morn and eve. 
These glens first read in thy illumined smiles. 
Thence, too, arose upon thy wondering gaze, 
That light, before whose glory suns and stars 
Put off their splendor — that Promethean flamej 
Brought by the Mayflower from the throne of 

God, 
To smite the rayless darkness from a world 



LOOK NOT THOU UPON THE WINE 
WHEN IT IS RED. 

SOFT sleep the hills in their sunny repose, 
In the Land of the South, where the vine 
fondest grows ; 
And blithesome the hearts of the vintagers be 
In the grape-purpled vales of the Isles of the Sea ! 

And fair is the wine when its splendor is poured 
Where glass beams to glass round the festival board. 
While the magic of music awakes in its power, 
And wit gilds the fast-falling sands of the hour. 

Yet lift not the Wine-cup, though pleasure may swim 
Mid the bubbles that Hash round its roseate brim ; 
For dark in the depths of the vortex below. 
Are the sirens that haunt the red maelstrom of woe. 

They have lured the gay spirit of childhood astray, 

While it dreamed not of wiles on its innocent way ; 

167 



l68 LOOK NOT THOU UPON THE WINE. 



i 



And the soft cheek of Beauty they've paled in its 

bloom, 
A.nd quenched her bright eyes in the damps of the 

tomb. 

They have torn the live wreath from the brow of 

the Brave, 
And clianged his proud heart to the heart of a 

slave ; 
And e'en the fair fame of the pure and the just, 
With the gray hairs of age, they have trampled in 

dust. 

Then lift not the Wine-cup, though pleasure may 

swim 
Mid the bubbles that flash round its roseate brim ; 
For dark in the depths of the vortex below, 
Are the sirens that haunt the red maelstrom of woe ! 



THE OPTIMIST. 



RITHEE, friend, why always sad, 
Whatsoe'er the case is ? 
Why contend our " world is bad," 
In all times and places ? 

Know that he, who thus complains 

Of this wondrous Nature, 
Contumeliously arraigns 

Its divine Creator. 

He pronounced it " very good"* 

But^w/, bold decryer. 
Have the monstrous hardihood 

To make God a liar ! 

Unto His unerring eye, 

Faultless the inspection ; 
And the Morning Stars on high 

Hymned the clear perfection. 
1 60 



I/O THE OPTIMIST. 

You, who scarce can see your hand, 
At arm's length diminished, 

Swear that worlds were badly planned, 
Botched, and left half finished ! 

" Ozirs, at least, where pain and sin, 
Leech and priest defying, 
Claim us ere life well begin, 
Leave us but in dying ! " 

Yes, but may not wisdom deem 
That e'en these dread phases, 

In the universal scheme 
Have their rightful places ? 

He who saw the perfect whole 

While 'twas yet ideal, 
Faulted not in sand or soul, 

When He made it real. 

Think you that His wise intents 
By mere chance succeeded ? 

That He fashioned instruments 
Never used nor needed ? 

Pain and pleasure, good and ill, 

In themselves or actors. 
All are workers of His will. 

All are benefactors. 



THE OPT! All ST. 17I 



Had there been no Lucifer 
To the world's temptation, 

There had been no Crucifer 
For the great salvation. 

Though our earth be but a speck 

On creation's border, 
It could never suffer wreck 

Without worlds' disorder : 

Orbs above it, orbs below, 

All concatenated, 
Needs must feel a kindred throe, 

Were't annihilated. 

Orb and atom — each is just 
What and where it should be ; 

Otherwise the Cosmos must 
Fail of what it would be. 

Even one so mean as I, 

Born for humblest kneeing, 

Links still humbler with the high, 
Li the chain of being. 

Let us, then, submissive rest 

In our several station, 
Sure that all is for the best. 

Throughout all creation ! 



THE BUYER BOUGHT. 

iOJOURNING lately at an hostelry 
!^ Not many miles from Washington, D. C, 
I, who am dwarfed alike by stout and tall, 
Could not but feel ridiculously small, 
When, to the attic summons of my bell, 
A dark Hyperion promptly answered, "Well?" 
A nobler presence, form of grander mold. 
Of shapelier limb, or power more manifold, 
My eyes had rarely lighted on till then. 
In all their wide remark of model men. 
" Well ?" he repeated, as my anxious sight 
Surveyed the airy distance of the height 
I needs must measure, should he, haply, please 
To hurl me headlong (and he could with ease). 
For ringing up, though unaware indeed. 
So grand a server of a trivial need. 
But soon recovering from my blank surprise, 
And squarely meeting his unswerving eyes, 
I said, as one preposterously brave : 
" Are you, forsooth, a — pardon me — a slave ? " 
172 



II 



THE BUYER BOUGHT. 1/3 

" Slave ! " he retorted with a bitter smile, 
And nervous tapping of his breast the while, 
" I bought of my own father, truth to say, 
For a great price, this unpaternal clay ; 
And, as I paid in full, / surely ought 
To be the owner of the thing I bought ! " 



m 



LINES 

TO A YOUNG FRIEND, WITH A COPY OF SHAKSPEARE. 

S o'er the crystal element 

The Queen of Eden careless bent, 
She started back with frank surprise 
At the sweet face, that met her eyes ; 
Yet looked again, and gazing on 
The upward-gazing paragon. 
She felt, perforce, as beauty will. 
Her pure cheek flush, her bosom thrill, 
To recognize her own fair face 
In perfect reflex, grace for grace ! 

So when, at times, my gentle friend 
O'er Shakspeare's magic page shall bend, — 
Where Genius in its happiest mood 
All loveliest traits of womanhood 
Has mirrored in immortal lays, — 
She, too, shall start with fond amaze, 
To see the imaged counterpart 
Of her own maiden mind and heart, 
In Portia's, Juliet's sister mien. 
And the white soul of Imogen. 
174 



CLERK-VESPERS IN WALL STREET. 



P'g WELVE hours since morn I've toiled away 
S^sJ Dear hours of blithesome boyhood, yet 
As one who never dreamed of play, 
Or dreamed but to forget. 

I know not what the day has been 

Abroad beneath the vernal skies, 
I only know that here within 

It seemed of sombre guise. 

Perchance on circling hills the while. 
And flowery slope and dimpled bay, 

The golden sunlight's softest smile 
Has played the livelong day. 

Yet what is Spring's glad light to him. 
Or earth's fresh lap whereon it falls, 

Whose heaven is yonder sky-light dim, 
Whose scope, these dingy walls ? 
■175 



176 CLERK-VESPERS IN WALL STREET. 

Here is my world, relieved by nought 
Of swarded green or vaulted blue ; 

Here, day by day, must thews and thought 
The same dull task pursue. 

Chained to the oar, like galley-boy, 

When youth would float with pleasure's tides, 
I row against the stream of joy. 

And gaze the way it glides. 

But thanks to thee, returning Eve, 
That smil'st with starry eyes so fair, 

And bring'st the blest though brief reprieve 
From this dull round of care ! 

Hence ! figured tomes, whose soulless lore 
But treats of Mammon's loss or gain ; 

I feel your shadows fall once more 
Alike from heart and brain. 

Farewell ! till morn, the din and jar, 
The tumult of the bustling street, 

The rumbling of the ponderous car, 
And tramp of eager feet. 

The loveliest of suburban nooks. 

All greeh with rustling vine and bough, 

And voices sweet, and fond, fond looks 
Await my coming now. 



CLERK-VESPERS IN WALL STREET. IJJ 

And, haply, o'er the moonlit dews, 

When sleep has hushed those voices sweet, 

For trysting dear night's coyest muse 
Shall seek my green retreat ; 

And, with some charm of measured thought, 

Again bid joy's reviving wings 
Forget what cares to-day has brought. 

And what to-morrow brings. 



IT IS WELL WITH THE CHILD. 



SIMPLE pebble from the brook, 
That daily wins a passing look 
By some quaint charm of form or hue, 
We miss not from our wonted view, 
Without a natural regret 
To lose e'en such a humble pet. 
More natural still the tender pain, 
When ours the lot to look in vain 
For living object, bird or flower. 
Whose charm has solaced many an hour, 
And made the very sick-room seem 
The precinct of a dulcet dream. 
But when inexorable Fate 
Will make us most disconsolate, 
She snatches from our yearning sight 
Some nearer, dearer heart's delight — 
Some spirit from the realms of day 
Embodied in our mortal clay ; 
Like thine, dear little friend, whose face 
Beamed on us with such winning grace, 
178 



IT IS WELL WITH THE CHILD. 1 79 

As made each glance, wherever met, 
The sunniest and the sweetest yet ! 
And daily to our longing eyes 
Its vanished smiles will fondly rise ; 
And, nightly, blend their angel gleams 
With memory's most hallowed dreams :, 
Till, haply, in that happier clime 
Beyond these brooding mists of time, 
We meet the dear ones gone before, 
Imparadised for evermore ! 



LINES 

ON REVISITING A FAVORITE LAKE, AFTER AN ABSENCE OF 
MANY YEARS. 

iB'^fllROM those thronged haunts, where Nature's 

|H.SS|| trampled germs 

Ne'er feel the touch of Spring, nor wake to wear 

Her green and perfumed garniture again, 

Escap'd at last, like vassal disenthralled, 

I stand upon thy silvan marge once more, 

fairest mirror ! where the placid Morn 
Surveys her blushing loveliness, or Eve 
The wondrous glory of her starry train ! 
Yet bears the image gazing at me now. 
Far other aspect than was wont to smile 

On boyhood's bending vision ; though the boy 
And he that sighs to mark the mournful change, 
Are still the same. Sad change, indeed ! — yet 

thanks, 
Thanks, dear magician ! in whose faithful glass 

1 read that time may pale the flush of youth. 
May blanch the raven locks, and earthward bend 



LINES TO A FAVORITE LAKE. l8l 

The wan and wrinkled tablet of the brow ; 
Yet leave the heart's first records uneffaced, 
And all its Geyser-fountains bubbling still. 
Therefore to thee and these associate scenes, 
Whate'er this outward seeming, I have brought 
The fresh, warm feelings, and the memories dear 
Ye nursed within my breast in vernal years. 
Despite the past, I am a boy again ! 
And soon from yon dim grotto as of yore, 
A fairy bark shall leap into thy waves. 
And fling its white folds bravely to the breeze 
In gay defiance ; nor shall he whose hand 
Directs its billowy fleetness, heave a sigh 
For broader ocean or more witching isles 
Than these my own dear native hills embrace. 
And when the stormy spirit of the North 
Has hushed thy liquid murmurs, and consigned 
Thy dimpled beauty to a rigid waste, 
The boy of two-score winters oft shall join 
The hamlet's merry troop, careering wild 
On steel-shod sandals o'er thy smooth expanse ; 
While ring the echoing dells with louder mirth, 
When sheer beneath our swiftly-gliding feet, 
Thunders the sudden cleft from shore to shore ; 

And she who bends in childhood's strange delight 
Above the pale sweet face soft mirrored there. 
As if thy loveliest Naiad's sister eyes 
Were smiling up in hers, shall haunt with me 



1 82 LINES TO A FAVORITE LAKE. 

Thy winding bays, green isles, and headlands bold. 
And deem that Tempe in its vernal prime 
Could boast no charms that were exotic here. 
To her, erewhile in urban durance pent. 
Earth's verdant lap, perfumed with floral hues, 
And laced with silver streams, was all unknown ; 
Nay, yonder Sun, bedimmed by sulphurous clouds. 
And shorn of half his realms by Art's proud piles 
Upheaved in gloomy grandeur to the sky. 
Has never taught her wondering soul till now, 
With what a godlike glory he comes forth 
From morning's rosy portals, and at eve 
Smiles from his golden chambers of the West. 
The time has been when one poor sickly flower, 
One dwarf'd shrub pining in the dim, damp court, 
And one pet bird, unconscious as herself 
Of bloomy lawns and many-minstrelled groves, 
Were all she knew of Nature ; but henceforth 
Her path shall wind through fields so pranked with 

flowers, 
That oft her lifted foot shall seek in vain 
For space whereon to light, nor harm the bee ; 
Or steal through warbling wilds so arched with 

boughs. 
And roofed with myriad leaves, the noon-day sun 
Ne'er sees the moss on which their shadows sleep. 
And ah ! should that young cheek's too lingering 

flush. 
Like Autumn's hectic hues, presage decay, 



I 



LINES TO A FAVORITE LAKE. 183 

Still hope is ours, that thou who sendest forth 
Thy cooling mists upon the evening winds, 
To bless with gentle showers or gentler dews 
The lowliest herb that withers in the waste, 
Hast yet a healing balm for this dear flower, 
Snatched from the rough Zahara of the world 
To bloom in thy glad presence, fairy lake, 
And crown the glory of thy perfect charms. 



THE PARTING BY THE SEA. 

— RURSUS TE, NATA, LICEBIT 

AMPLECTI ? Claudian. 

JNE more embrace, sweet one, the last 

For long, long months, perchance for years ! 
The loosed sail climbs the dizzy mast, 

The pilot at his helm appears ; 
And hark ! the imperious All ashore ! 
Alas ! — yet one — one last kiss more ! 

Now, though thou canst not hear the prayer 
We lingering breathe beside the sea : 

Our wafted kisses still shall bear 
Sweet messages of love to thee, 

As long as brimming eyes can trace 

Thy form across the widening space. 

O vernal winds ! whose fickleness 

The palm of change may justly claim, 

For once your wanton mood repress. 
And, sobered to a steady aim. 

Speed onward, with unwavering breath, 

The bark that bears Elizabeth ! 
184 



THE PARTING BY THE SEA. 185 

And when her pilgrimage is o'er , 
Her memory made a pictured shrine 

For shapes and scenes which classic lore 
Has touched with splendor half divine ; 

O faithful winds ! still fair abaft, 

The loving to the loving waft ! 



THE LAST WATCH. 

0-MORROW, Greenwood's turf must fold 
These dear remains from mortal sight — 
Ah ! slowly let the sands be told, 

That bring the parting anguish, Night ! 

As o'er the shrouded form we bend, 
Our souls with fond illusions thrill — 

Sweet dreams, that thou, departed friend, 
In this pale sleep art with us still. 

But never more from such eclipse 
Shall morn those gentle eyes relume, 

Nor ever more on those cold lips 
Shall wit its smiling throne resume ! 

Nor shall that voice, so soft and sweet. 

Again in silvery accents flow ; 
Or that dear hand, delighted, meet 

Our own in friendship's heart-warm glow I 
i86 



THE LAST IV A TCH. . 1 8; 

Vet, Charles ! till we, who watch and weep. 
In turn are gathered earth to earth ; 

Our souls with vestal care shall keep 
Undimmed the record of thy worth. 

How soon must Greenwood's turf enfold 
These dear remains from love's fond sight ! 

Ah ! slowly let the sands be told, 

That bring the parting anguish, Night ! 



LINES TO A DEAR YOUNG FRIEND. 

]S men have watched the starry skies, 
To herald fate's decree ; 
So have I gazed in thy young eyes 

To learn thy destiny ; 
But in their azure depths of light 

No prophet-sign appears, 
To mark, thy life for early blight, 
Or long and happy years. 

Yet, let no fear of future ill 

Thy sunny smiles o'ercast ! 
Spring holds not back her budding sweets, 

For menaced blight or blast ; 
Nor deem it hard that change on change 

Betides our steps below ; 
Earth were too dear if all were joy, 

Too drear if all were woe. 

Life's mingled chalice, then, dear friend, 
With calm acceptance greet ; 

• i88 



LINES TO A DEAR YOUNG FRIEND, 1 89 

Not mindless of its bitter drops, 

Nor thankless for its sweet ; 
And trust, that though thy future path 

Through wastes forlorn may lie ; 
The care that guards the desert bird, 

Will fount and food supply ! 



BROTHER TO BROTHERS. 



ROM the four winds we are come, 
Brothers, to this gracious home, 
Each at Ahiia Mater's knee 
To be trained impartially 
For the post his bent, not whim, 
Plainly points as best for him 
Where to strike for truth and right 
With a a loyal champion's might. 

Who shall say that ours is not, 
Every way, a favored lot ? 
While in yonder busy streets 
Toil his weary tasks repeats, 
Plying hammer, trowel, plane, 
Urged by need, or greed of gain ; 
Here we take our easeful seat 
At some sage Gamaliel's feet, 
While he turns the classic page, 
And exalts the heritage 
Left by genius graced to find 
Richest ingots of the mind, 
190 



BROTIJEK TO BROTHERS. I9I 

And to coin the precious store 
For world-treasures evermore ; 
Or he bids the Gnomes reveal 
What their rayless realms conceal ; 
Bids tiie Naiads rob the seas 
Of their untold mysteries ; 
Or the restless Sylphs declare 
Their coy wonders of the air ; 
Or Urania disclose 
How the starry hosts arose, 
And, in circling order bright, 
Interchangeing day and night, 
With their orreries sublime 
Mete the cosmic march of time. 

Brothers, wheresoe'er at last. 
Fate our severed lives shall cast ; 
In the pauses of the strife, 
Which awaits all earnest life, 
These quaternion years will seem 
Like a brief Elysian dream. 
Which, with many a fond refrain. 
We shall dream and dream again ! 

When the knell of college-days 
Tolls us to the parting ways, 
(Nevermore, perchance, to meet !) 
And our unreturning feet 
Bear us far and farther from 
This our dear fraternal home, 



192 



BROTHER TO BROTHERS. 



We shall see in. Memory's glass, 

All its varied past repass — 

See these groves where we have strayed 

As in Academus' shade, 

Musing Science' endless themes, 

Rapt with poets' vivid dreams ; 

See each grave Gamaliel's brow 

Fondly anxious then as now ; 

And each comrade's face, the while, 

Meet and greet us, smile for smile 1 



Brothers ! near or far apart, 
Let us so keep hand and heart 
True to every duty's claim. 
Pure from every soil of shame. 
That, no sighed " alas ! " be heard 
For one thoughtless deed or word, 
When or where in Memory's glass, 
We shall see our past repass ! 



INTRODUCTORY LINES FOR A FRIEND'S 
ALBUM. 



"^'EAR friends, these leaves so pure and white, 
sA\ Just as they are, can give delight 



To eyes that have been blest to see 
A charm in spotless purity. 
Nor deem me vain, if / confess 
To feel that charm's delighfulness 
In these fair blanks, as now they are, 
Without one fleck or speck to mar ! 

But what a deeper pleasure still. 
In after years my heart shall thrill. 
When, bending o'er these tablets dear, 
I read what love has written here ! 
Even //<?«/, from out this stainless white, 
P'ond words steal clearly on my sight. 
And sweetly whisper in my ear 
Heart-greetings, tender and sincere. 

But when these fancied words shall stand 
Revealed, at last, by friendship's hand ; 
193 



194 



LINES FOR A FRIEND'S ALBUM. 



What crowning joy shall then be mine., 
As, lingering o'er each gracious line, 
My eyes in every sentence trace 
The writer's very form and face ; 
While breathes his voice, so near, so dear, 
From all the precious souvenir ! 



THE TEMPTATION. 

I HE merchant prince had retired for the 
day, 

And cleric after clerk had dropt away, 
Till at last remained but a single one 
At his weary desk and his task undone. 
As slowly the twilight's spectral gloom 
Shut down on the lonely counting-room, 
Whose ponderous safe's forgotten key 
Seemed to whisper, " Lo, open Sesame !" 
Then wierdly stole on the toiler's ear : 
"Ho ! slave of the thriftless pen, look here ! 
Lo ! riches to win one a royal bride — 
The coast is clear, and the world is wide ; 
By the forelock seize opportunity, 
Or grovel in life-long drudgery ! " 
Then the safe key turned in the massy ward, 
And the door swung ope of its own accord. 
Disclosing a glamour of treasures untold. 
Ingots and coffers compact of gold ; 
And again there glozed in the young clerk's ear, 
" The world is wide, and the coast is clear ; 
195 



I 



196 THE TEMPTATION. 

Make free, and away o'er the trackless sea — ^B 1 
Wealth everywhere sails in brave company ! " ^W 1 

But hark ! like the moan of passing-bell, 
A low, stern voice on the silence fell : 
" Make free, if thou wilt, and away o'er the sea — 
But these are the comrades shall sail with thee : 
Contempt for the honor that could not withhold 
Its hand from the grasp of another's gold ; 
Remorse for the lessons so lightly spurned, 
From tenderest lips in thy childhood learned ; 
Despair for the sinister bar of shame 
Burnt into the shield of an honored name ; 
Soul-yearnings for voices and faces that ne'er 
Shall be heard but in dreams, but in dreams shall 

appear ; 
And Conscieiice. commissioned to antedate 
The tortures assigned to the afterstate ; 
And Terror, the bloodhound that night and day 
Hangs hard on the heels of its felon prey — '. I 

Let him fly to the shrine, let him cower in the gloom 
Of the robber's cave or the eremite's tomb ; 
Let him rove with the corsair, or flit with the 

bands 
Whose barbs mock pursuit to the mid-desert 

sands ; 
No refuge so distant, no gloom so intense, 
But the bay of that bloodhound shall startle him 

thence. 



THE TEMPTATION. I97 

And harrow and haunt him o'er waste and o'er 

wave, 
To the outlaw's den or the suicide's grave ! " — 
Ah ! pause, ere thou set the black seal to thy fate 
With the hand that makes free with such perilous 

freight ; 
Nor launch thy young soul on life's treacherous seas, 
For a haven forlorn, with such comrades as these ! 



NOTHING LOST. 

LL forms in this fair world of ours 
Are heirs alike of sure decay — 
Alps, Andes, adamantine towers, 
Dissolving, perish day by day ! 
Yet valleys wax, as mountains wane 
Before the touch of fire or frost ; 
Forms change, their elements remain, 
This gaining what the other lost. 

The lucid drops in beauty's eye 

Were once the rainbow's softer flame ; 
A few brief hours, and yonder sky 

Its sparkling jewels will reclaim, 
To gleam in cloudland's sapphire hall, 

Snow- stars or gems oL opal rain ; 
Till earth the crystal waifs recall, 

To glow in beauty's orb again. 



198 



TO DASYA ELEGANS. 

HY were ye formed so graceful and so fair, 
To wave in dim recesses waste and lone ? 



Why do your fronds such purple splendor wear^ 
As never yet at Tyrian bridal shone ? 

In deep seclusion, far from human sight, 
Where ocean valleys wind in glimmering glocm, 

What eye is near to kindle with delight 

And grateful wonder, at your matchless bloom ? 

Yet will I deem not ye were born in vain. 
Nor fancy yours an unregarded lot, — 

No, lovely links in being's living chain. 
Wise ends ye serve, though man may guess them 
not ! 

For him, perchance your wafted virtue lends 
A balmier freshness to the ocean breeze ; 

Perchance for him your purple beauty blends 
A softer azure with the sky's and sea's. 
199 



2CK) 



TO DASYA ELEGANS. 



Nor will I doubt that in your native fields, 
Far from our dusty haunts of toil and care, 

Your tinted grace a dear enchantment yields 

To eyes that watch your bright unfoldings there. 



For 'tis my faith, that in the deepest night 
Of sparry grottoes, as in statued aisles. 

No form of beauty there but gives delight, 
And smiles the lovelier for reflected smiles. 



INVOCATION TO WINTER. 

S one whose bosom's burdened with the 
charge 

Uf mournful tidings lingers on the way 
His errand leads him, falters at the gate, 
And stops with fond misgiving by the door 
Whence joy must vanish as he lifts its latch ; 
So come thou, Winter ! messenger forlorn. 
With slow and sad reluctance ; pausing oft, 
And oft averting thy disastrous face 
From scenes thy presence, like a sombre cloud, 
Must disenchant of all their sunny smiles. 
We are become so pampered with the beams 
And balms of Summer, that thy very name 
To us, as to the tropic relegate 
Amid the shivering horrors of the North, 
Is but the doleful synonym of pain. 
Oh, regent of inexorable foes ! 
Leave us a little longer, we implore, 
The soft beatitude of genial days. 
The feel of Summer's scarce abated glow 
Tn Autumn's languid pulses ! Leave us still 



202 INVOCA TION TO WINTER. 

Sweet blandishment of winds, whose gentle breath 
Seems but the tempered retiuence of June's 
Without her roses ! Leave us still, we pray, 
The hum of bees in clovered aftermaths ; 
And, dearer yet, the song of lingering birds, 
Who would not heed the swallow's prescient call 
To climes that never dream of one like thee ! 

The sky is full of many-featured days- 
Days fierce and grim, days of celestial smiles. 
Which cheer and cherish all the forms of life. 
O scare not, frown not back with stormy ire. 
Impatient, these serene benignities ! 
Let there still linger round the couch of pain 
Soft benedictions of the sun and air ! 
Let Age creep forth, and in their genial warmth 
Forget the frosts that numb his trembling limbs ; 
And let the homeless child still find a hearth 
In every stone that woos his naked feet 
To share the blessing of its latent beams ! 
Thy crystal seal of silence set not yet 
Upon the silvery lips of tinkling streams ; 
Nor on the murmurous laughter of glad lakes 
To shimmering dimples kissed by fairy winds ; 
And oh, not yet, x^oiyet, we pray, despoil 
The silvan realm of its imperial robes 
By Iris woven in her magic looms ; 
But let our charmed wonder still survey 
The glorious vision, as the favored guests 
That walk the tiring-chambers of a king ' 



TO THE JOSEPHS AND PHARAOHS OF 
THE WEST. 

(time of the flour riots.) 

|H, ye hard-handed, not hard-hearted yoemen, 
Whom bounteous Ceres crowns witli plen- 
teousness ; 
Pray do not prove your city-cousins' foemen, 
In this their bitter hour of sore distress ! 

While Autumn's latest leaves are round us falling, 
And first furs walk the gusty promenade ; 

We hear the voice of Winter wildly calling 
His ruthless legions to their annual raid. 

How shall our gaunt and half-starved ragamuffins, 
Whose very sight would melt the soul of Puck, 

Encounter these remorseless Arctic rufifians 
With any decent show of manly pluck ? 

The while your barns and bins are overflowing 
With all the treasures of the bounteous year ; 
203 



204 TO THE JOSEPHS OF THE WEST. 

And your round cheeks and double chins are show- 
ing 
The hale and ruddy glow of generous cheer ; 

Grim want with livid lips and ghastly pallor, 
"Vhere Death himself might deeper horror learn, 

And homelessness, and nakedness, and squalor, 
Confront our shrinking steps at every turn. 

'Twould seem as if there'd been a league of nations, 
Wherein all tongues and tribes had taken part. 

At once to kidnap all their poor relations, 

And foist the living mass on our doomed mart. 

Outcasts Asiatic, Libyan, European, 

From all the round world's continental shores 

To the remotest isles antipodean. 

Besiege from morn till night our hapless doors ; 

And as they shrink before the grim December, 
Drowning his wild blasts with the cry for bread, 

There's something more for pity to remember 
Than wealth's cold comfort, " Be ye clothed and 
fed ! " 

Then hold not Ceres in ignoble durance, 
That later ransom may enlarge reward ; 

Shell out ! nor doubt the blessed Book's assur- 
ance : 
" Who helps the needy lendeth to the Lord ! " 



ONCE ON A TIME. 
(hallkck, red-jacket and bozzaris.) 



UST below Niblo's, west southwest, 
In a prosaic street at best, 
I chanced upon a lodge so small, 
So Liliputian in all, 
That Argus, hundred-eyed albeit, 
Might pass a hundred times, nor see it. 
Agog to learn what manikin 
Had shrined his household gods the-rein, 
With step as light as tiptoe fairy's 
I stole right in among the Lares. 
There, in the cosiest of nooks. 
Up to his very eyes in books. 
Sat a lone wight, nor stout nor lean, 
Nor old nor young, but just between, 
Poring among the figured columns 
Of those most unmelodious volumes, 
Intently as if there and then 
He conned the fate of gods ana men. 
205 



2o6 ONCE ON A TIME. 

Methought that brow so full and fair, 
Was formed the poet's wreath to wear ; 
And as those eyes of azure hue, 
One moment lifted, met my view, 
Gay worlds of starry thoughts appeared 
In their blue depths serenely sphered. 
Just then the voice of one unseen. 
All redolent of Hippocrene, 
Stole forth so sweetly on the air, 
I felt the Muse indeed was there ; 
And feel how much her words divine 
Must lose, interpreted by mine. 

" For shame," it said, "Fitz-Greene, for shame ! 
To yield thee to inglorious thrall, 
And leave the trophy of thy fame 
Without its crowning capital ! 

" The sculptor, bard, as well may trust 
To shape a form for glory's shrine. 
If, ceasing with the breathing bust, 
He leave un wrought the brow divine. 

" How oft the lavish Muse has grieved 
O'er hopes thy early years inspired ; 
And sighed that he who much received, 
Forgot that much would be required. 

*' But not too late, if heeded yet. 

The voice that chides thy mute repose. 



ONCE ON A TIME. 20/ 

And bids thee pay at last the debt 
Thy genius to Parnassus owes. 

" 'Tis not enough that pride may urge 
Thy claims to memory's grateful lore, 
And boast, as rapt from Lethe's surge, 
The Suliote and the Tuscarore. 

" Nay, bard, thy own land's mighty dead 
Deserve a nobler hymn from thee, 
Than bravest of the brave that bled 
At Laspi or ThermopylEe. 

" Remember, then, thy young renown. 
Thy country's dead, thy Muse's sigh ; 
And bid thy vigorous manhood crown 
What youthful genius reared so high ! " 



TO VIRGINIA. 



OTHER of Statesmen ! scorn to wreak 
Thy vengeance on a fallen foe ; 
The more, for that he turns the unblenched cheek 
To meet the deadly blow. 

Recall thy sons' heroic stand 

The tyrant's haughty rage to stem ; 
Championed by him whose birthplace makes thy 
land 

Akin to Bethlehem. 

Undo the helpless captive's chain 

From limbs already cramped with age ; 

Let not his gray hairs shame, his thin blood stain, 
Thy history's noble page ! 

Bid him go forth and sin no more ; 

But give to prayer and penitence 
The few, fleet moments haply yet in store, 

Ere God shall call him hence. 

Though, glorying in his frenzied deed, 
He reck not how the blow may come ; 

Crown not fanatic error with the meed 
Of saintly martyrdom ! 
208 



THE ENCHANTRESS. 

jllTH pencil dipped in richest dyes 
That flowery fields or sunset skies 
E'er lavish on our wondering sight, 
She touched the tablet's spotless white, 
And lo, such forms of beauty start 
To life, responsive to her art, 
As only grace, with charms supreme, 
The Eden of a poet's dream ! 
But vain were poet's happiest phrase, 
In happiest mood for fondest praise, 
To symbolize the witching spell 
Of this divine art miracle. 
Affrighted by the prying gaze 
And tumult of these boisterous days, 
'Tis said the Fairies and their Queen 
Can no more, anywhere, be seen 
Beneath the moon, in mead or dell. 
Though all the world watch e'er so well. 
Not so, Enchantress ! Fairy Land, 
Restored by thy creative hand. 
Smiles on us in these forms and hues, 
As sweetly as on Shakespeare's muse 
209 



2IO 



THE ENCHANTRESS. 



It smiled by Avon's haunted stream, 
In that most sweet Midsummer Dream : 
And were our failing sight less blurred 
With unshed tears for hopes deferred, 
It could not fail to recognize 
A fairy form, and fairy eyes 
Outpeeping from each covert screen 
Of leaves, and flowers, and mosses green, 
De.picted with such skill divine. 
That Nature would not change a line. 



TO NAPOLEON THE GREAT, li 






IKE the peal of distant thunder 

Booming through the sullen night ; 
Like the earthquake's rumbling shudder 

Paling cities with affright, 
Swells the roar of revolution 

Far o'er palaced hills and plains, 
From the hearts of trampled millions 
Blindly bursting from their chains. 



Oh, for one of lordly presence, 

One of genius all sublime. 
On whose brow in light were written : 

Worthy of the Task and Time ! 
Gloriously to solve the problem 

With the sword of Cha-rlemagne ; 
" What shall be the fate of Europe, 

Cossack or Republican ? " 

Hark ! methinks the stifled murmur 
Of avenging wrath and shame, 
2ir 



212 TO NAPOLEON THE GREAT. 

Growing to articulate utterance, 

Syllables at last a name ; 
One whilom that thrilled the tyrants 

With a more than mortal dread ; 
One Valhalla's proudest welcomed, 

Mightiest of the warrior dead ! 

Victor in a hundred battles, 

In as many hostile lands, 
'Twixt the Moskwa's frozen horrors 

And Syene's burning sands ; 
From thy bannered mausoleum, 

Towering o'er the mournful Seine, 
Wakened by the shout of nations, 

Burst upon the scene again ! 

Not in pomp of royal purple, 

Sceptre, crown, and oriflamme. 
Such as erst thy triumph blazoned 

In resplendent Notre- Dame ; 
But as when France first received thee, 

Lord of humbled Austria ; 
Nobler in thy plain gray saga. 

And thy simple chapeau-bras. 

When around thy surf-beat dungeon 
Wildly raved the midnight blast, 

T^TE d'armiee sublimed the tumult 
As thy stormier spirit passed ! 



TO NAPOLEON THE GREAT. 213 

How sublimer were the echo 

Of thy dying words to-day, 
Could the voice of mustering millions 

Hail thee Freedom's Tete d'armee ! 

Wake, O wake, then, sworded sleeper, 

From thy bivouac of death ! 
Thou whose nostril's living ether 

Was the cannon's fiery breath : 
Lo ! against the hosts of tyrants 

Freedom's host its phalanx knits — 
Wake, and to the People's battle 

Bring the sun of Austerlitz ! 

Never yet in ai^ their perils, 

All their agonies, till now, 
Have they needed such a Mentor, 

Such a present Mars as thou, 
'Gainst their banded foes to lead them, 

With thy old prophetic trust, 
Till the last of throned oppressors, 

Crushed and crownless, bite the dust. 

Then, resumed thy martial cerements, 

Sleep the dreamless sleep again. 
In thy bannered mausoleum, 

Towering o'er the joyous Seine ; 
Hailed with grateful Requiescat, 

Breathed from every peopled clime : 
This time faithful to his mission. 

Worthy of his Task sublime ! 



CENTENNIAL ECHOES. 

VERSES READ AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE HUNDREDTH 
ANNIVERSARY OF LEE, MASS., SEPTEMBER 13, I877. 



IND friends, if idle fame has raised 
The pleasing expectation, 
That rhymes of mine were like to lend 

One charm to this occasion ; 
Pray do not blame the simple bard 

For his compliant ditty ; 
But charge the disappointment all, 
To your insane Committee ! 



They feared no lack of racy ''''prose" 

Both joyous and pathetic ; 
But even that would please the more, 

If pranked with foil poetic ; 
And, therefore, have I greatly dared 

To face your focal glances. 
While my decrepit lyre intones 

A tale of rhythmic fancies : — 
214 



CENTENNIAL ECHOES. 21 

The scene was Nature's model vale, 

Where, after long reflection, 
Like Zeuxis, she had grouped ana posed 

Each borrowed charm's perfection — 
The fairest hills, the gayest meads, 

The clearest lakes and fountains — 
And set the living picture in 

A frame of graceful mountains. 

But sons of that first woful pair 

Who brought the curse of toiling. 
Descried the wonder, and began 

Their round of Eden-spoiling ; 
They felled the warbling groves, and gashed 

The mountains' silvan towers ; 
And with the mattock, scythe and share. 

Laid low the friendless flowers. 

The Woodnymphs and the Oreads, shocked 

At such dire desecration. 
Caught up their blackened skirts, and fled 

Their ancient habitation 
And left the spoilers to pursue 

Their chopping and their charring, — 
Complete, in short, their perfect work 

Of universal marring ! 

But, by and by, when things were grown 
Almost beyond enduring ; 



2 1 6 CEN TENNIA L E CHOES. 

And Nature's wounds seemed past all hope 
Of stanching, much less, curing ; 

There came a Fairy to the vale. 
Of most enchanting presence. 

And softly stole a gracious spell 
Upon the artless peasants. 

Her smile was like the purple sheen 

That plays on lake and river, 
When laughing ripples glance the shafts 

From Morning's rosy quiver ; 
Her voice as sweet as sweetest harp's 

The Summer wind just kisses ; 
And witching as the lays that charmed 

The comrades of Ulysses. 

She taught them that the moiling swain 

May find sufficient leisure 
To nurse a sense of outward grace, 

To thrill with inward pleasure ; 
And that, in all the walks of life, 

It is our bounden duty, 
So far as in us lies, to veil 

A blemish with a beauty. 

They heard and heeded well the words 

That clearest Truth reflected, 
Whose simple logic rarely fails 

To make her laws respected ; 



CENTENNIAL ECHOES. 21/ 

And soon the outraged vale began 

To show a smart improvement ; 
For manly vigor followed up, 

As woman led the movement. 

To blots and blemii;hes anon 

The change proved comi-tragic — 
Old eyesores vanished from the scene, 

As if by force of magic ; 
The barn no longer with the home 

Stood elbowing for precedence ; 
But meekly showed its sense of right, 

By complaisant recedence. 

The stable stole behind the barn ; 

Remoter still, the swine-yard ; 
The door-yard spurned its further use 

Of chopping-place and kine-yard : 
While cart, sled, buggy, kennel, coop, 

Decorum's hardened scorners. 
Turned tail, and hid themselves away 

In proper holes and corners. 

At last the Old House rubbed its eyes, 

And blushed to see how shabby 
It needs must look in gabardine 

So threadbare, torn, and drabby ; 
And thereupon it set to work 

With earnest perseverance, 



2l8 CENTENNIAL ECHOES. 

Like tattered beau resolved to show 
A downright spruce appearance. 

Old clapboard lesions straight were healed ; 

Old shingles sloughed their mosses ; 
New panes, instead of scarecrow hats, 

Made good the window's losses ; 
And where the sun's rude eye till then 

Had glared its bold intrusion. 
Green blinds their welcome shadows dropt 

Upon the dear seclusion. 

And vines were planted by the door, — 

The woodbine or clematis, — 
To curtain in the rustic porch, 

And drape the airy lattice ; 
And trees of graceful form and leaf 

Soon waved along all highways, 
And sent their verdant juniors forth 

To farthest lanes and byways 

So well, that e'en at highest noon, 

When June's keen solstice blazes, 
And not a Sylph in all the sky 

Her silvery sunshade raises. 
From end to end of that fair vale, 

Where'er one's promenadings, 
He threads long arbors fresh and cool 

With elm and maple shadings. 



CENTENNIAL ECHOES. 219 

Yon stream tliat makes our native vales 

A rival land of Goshen, 
Erst gathered in its myriad rills 

And bore them back to ocean ; 
Unused in all its willowy course 

By groves of pines and beeches, 
Save where the Indian's birch canoe' 

Went idling down the reaches. 

But noiii, where near-confronting hills 

Oppose their jutting shoulders, 
Or rended crags have lined the shore 

With dam-inviting boulders ; 
Behold, the valemen's cunning hands, 

The struggling Samson binding, 
Bend his blind strength to countless tasks 

Of spinning, forging, grinding ! 

And what a nobler triumph still, 

When from the full-urned mountains 
They won for garden, park, and lawn, 

The flash and plash of fountains ; 
And bade the boon, for rich and poor 

Exhaustlessly upwelling, 
A pure and sure Bethesda bide 

In every village dwelling ! 

And whereas, erst, no careless soul 
In all those mangled bowers, 



230 CENTENNIAL ECHOES. 

E'er waked to give one kindly thought 
To Eden's exiled flowers ; 

There's scarce a cotter now, but will, 
By dint of harder toiling, 

Find time to cherish these dear waifs 
Of Adam's garden-spoiling. 

Nor has his home-parterre engrossed 

His hard-earned leisure solely ; 
Fondly he helps to dress the scene 

By kindred dust made holy ; 
Till 'mid the verdure and the bloom 

That veil life's last dark portal, 
He almost smiles to view the bourne 

'Twixt mortal and immortal. 

And lo ! how fair the public taste, 

To match the general brightness, 
Has robed the village church near by. 

In stole of saintly whiteness. 
Which, thus arrayed, may well beseem 

To eyes of pensive weepers, 
The earthly tent of angels sent 

To guard the silent sleepers. 

Thus Grace and Dryad came again, 
And with them came the Muses, 

Whose blessed office is to teach 
That life's true aims and uses 



CRN TENNIA L ECHOES. 2 2 I 

Are not best shown in massing gold, 

Or multiplying acres. 
Nor lending sacrilegious hands 

To beauty's image-breakers ; 

But in the culture of the mind, 

The soul's divine emotions. 
Love, faith, peace, sympathy with all 

Heroic self-devotions ; 
With reverence for genuine worth, 

No matter what the station 
Of him who lifts a human heart 

To angel aspiration. 

And just as Nature's face improved, 

Improved her votaries' faces. 
Grown faithful mirrors to reflect 

Her humanizing graces ; 
While gentle manners so prevail. 

They seal the fond conviction, 
That here., at least, the Golden Age 

Is no poetic fiction ! 



THE MOTHER'S HOME-CALL. 

WRITTEN BY REQUEST FOR THE " BERKSHIRE JUBILEE,'* 
AUGUST 22 AND 23, 1 844. 

E miss the swallow's graceful wing 

When Autumn leaves grow pale and sere, 
But with the soft, sweet gales of Spring, 

Her purple plumes again appear : 
Green isles that crown the southern main 
Smiled sweetly on their minstrel guest ; 
Yet all their gorgeous charms were vain 
To wean her from her mountain nest. 

But ye, whose truant feet have coursed 

Afar o'er alien lands and seas. 
By no imperious instinct forced 

To seek for sunnier skies than these, — 
Why turn ye not ? ah ! wherefore let 

Strange scenes your charmed fancies bind ? 
Ah ! why for long, long years forget 

The homes and hearts ye left behind ? 



THE MOTHER'S HOME-CALL. 223 

O spurn at last ambition's cliain 

Around your better natures wrought, 
Nor longer swell the eager train 

Of fame or fortune's Juggernaut ! 
Return, and boyhood's faded Spring 

Shall bloom round manhood's homeward track ; 
And memory's refluent sunshine fling 

The shadow from life's dial back ! 

The grove's lone aisles shall ring again , 

With music of their vernal choirs, 
While gaily on from glen to glen 

The wild brooks sweep their silvery lyres , 
And love shall ply her tenderest art, 

Sweet home her sweetest aspect wear, 
That wearied mind and wounded heart 

May find a sure Bethesda there. 

Come seek the scenes of boyish glee, 

The haunts of youth's sedater hours ; 
And, dearer yet, the trysting-tree 

Still sweet with love's immortal flowers. 
Come muse where oft in years gone by. 

O'er kindred dust ye bent the knee ; 
And feel 'twere scarcely death to die. 

If their last couch your own might be \ 



RESPONSE OF THE RECALLED. 

JAIL, Land of Green Mountains ! whose val- 
leys and streams 
Are fair as the Muse ever pictured in dreams ; 
Where the stranger oft sighs with emotion sincere : 
"Ah, would that my own native home had been 
here ! " 

Hail, Land of the lovely, the equal, the brave, 
Never trod by the foe, never tilled by the slave ; 
Where the lore of the world to the hamlet is 

brought, 
And speech is as free as the pinions of thought. 

But blest as thou art, in our youth we gave ear 
To Hope Avhen she whispered of prospects more 

dear ; 
Where the hills and the vales teem with garlands 

untold. 
And the rainbow ne'er flies with its jewels and 

gold! 

224 



I 



J^ESFOA'SE OF THE RECALLED. 22$ 

Yet chide not too harshly thy truants, grown gray 
In the chase of bright phantoms that lured us 

astray ; 
For weary and lone has our pilgrimage been 
From the haunts of our childhood, the graves of 

our kin. 

Nor deem that with us, out of sight out of mind 
Were the homes and the hearts we left saddened 

behind, 
As the hive to the bee, as her nest to the dove. 
These, these have been ever our centre of love. 

Yes, when far away from thee. Land of our birth, 
We have mused mid the trophies and Tempes of 

earth, 
Our thoughts, like thy spring-birds flown home o'er 

the sea, 
In day-dreams and night-dreams have still been 

with thee. 



LIFE BEYOND LIFE. 

|e walked the grand old halls 
From whose walls, 
In the golden sunset's wane, 
Looked down the pride of Spain, 
Whom the pencil's magic dyes, 
Warm as Andalusian skies, 
Had embalmed, in age or prime, 
For all time. 

Far round, from antique frames, 

Courtly dames, 
Senoritas, young and bright 
(Conscious queens in beauty's right), 
Sceptred monarch, kneeling page. 
Mitred priest, and civic sage, 
Knight, and bard of famous lays. 
Met our gaze. 

In this presence of the dead. 
Then I said 
226 



I 



LIFE BE YOND LIFE. 

To my cowled and noary guide : 

What a dream is human pride ! 
Life's poor sands, how few and fast ! 
Painted phantoms of the past, 
How your lips of vanished breath 
Whisper Death ! " 

' Ah, no, my son ; no, no ; 

Say not so ! " 
The old man gently sighed. 
This is life to life denied ! 
These are victors over Death, 
Hence to breathe immortal breath ! 
We the dreams, the phantonis we, 

Ay de vii ! " 



LINES 

TO A FRIEND, WITH LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS. 



M. 



HE sunlight falls on hill and dale 
With slanter beam and fainter smile, 
And brown leaves fleck the fitful gale, 

Where warbling pinions glanced erewhile. 

Yet these fair forms of orient race 

Still graced my garden's faded bowers, 

And lent to Autumn's mournful face 
The charm of Summer's rosy hours. 

When hope forsook the dying year, 
They, fond and faithful to the last, 

Remained, like funeral friends, to cheer 
The void from which the loved had passed. 

Thus, lady, when life's lated blight 
Has paled thy dimples' rosy glow. 

Has dimmed thy glances' starry light, 
And flecked thy raven locks with snow, 
228 



LINES TO A FRIEND. 229 

Shall love, like these fair lingerers, seem 
Still lovelier than its vanished prime ; 

And gild with purer, holier beam, 
The waste of beauty's Autumn time ! 



TO WILLIE. 

]HILD of my failing years, 
Strength is denied me 
On through life's hopes and fears 

Farther to guide thee ! 
Yet though hands fall apart, 

Loving souls, never ; 

Faithful and true of heart 

Death cannot sever ! 

Thou must go hence alone. 

Whether thy path lead 
Roughly o'er stock and stone, 

Smoothly through velvet mead ; 
Heartened, that rough and smooth, 

Watcher and sleeper. 
Castle, and cot, and booth. 

Have the same Keeper ! 



Strive not for wealth, but right — 
Wealth winged for fleeing ! 
230 



TO WILLIE. 231 



Helpless, from night to light, 

Came we on being ; 
Helpless, from light to night. 

We must go — whither? 
Riches and fame and might 

Follow not thither. 

Who holds, in deed and word, 

All men his neighbors ; 
And, called of Christ our Lord, 

Rests from his labors. 
His works do follow him 

Through the dark portal ; 
Bless him and hallow him, 

Mortal immortal ! 



MISERERE. 

LAS, poor anxious breast ! 

There seems nor peace nor rest 
On earth for thee — 
No hope, no rest, no peace, 
Of trouble no surcease, 
While life shall be ! 

I yearn unto the stars, 

As through cold prison-bars 

So stern, so strong ; 
But from the pitiless sky- 
There cometh no reply 

To my " how long ! " 



If o'er life's hither track 
To youth I falter back, 

What waits me there, 
But dust of perished flowers. 
Spectres of murdered hours, 

Remorse, despair ? 



MISERERE. 233 

Ah me ! how fain, how fain 
Would I begin again 

That hither way ; 
Whence oft my heedless soul 
From duty's forthright goal 

Was lured astray ! 

But, Fate ! thou wilt not give 
The lost years to relive, 

The past, repass ; 
For vital sands, once run, 
No power beneath the sun 

Can turn the glass. 

Then let the precious few, 
Unwasted yet, fall true 

To duty all ; 
That with the last, one tear. 
Spontaneous and sincere, 

For me may fall. 



WHEN ? 

HEN shall this wan, wayworn Mortal, 
Heir of sorrow, pain, decay, 
Reach, at last, the friendly portal 
Where all burdens fall away ? 

Shall it be, when from her palace 
Smiles the morning's roseate queen ? 

Or when noon with brimming chalice 
Floods the world with dazzling sheen ? 

Or when day's tumultuous clamor 
Flies the weary haunts of men. 

In the starry hush and glamour 
Of the night, shall it be then ? 

Truce to vain interrogation ! — 

Whoso to his steps gives heed, 
And through travail and temptation 

Firmly follows duty's lead ; 
234 



WHEN? 235 

Lifts the fallen, stays the erring, 
Wins the hopeless from despair, — 

All he can on all conferring, — 

Why should he mind When or Where ? 



LINES TO CLARA. 

]'VE gazed on forms whose faultless mold 
Seemed lent from perfect worlds above, 
And yet my heart, unmoved and cold, 

Repelled the glow of love ; 
And thus, while others fondly praised 

Thy beauty and thy grace divine, 
With stoic pride I careless gazed. 
Nor bowed before thy shrine : 

Nor was the spell that binds me now, 
A willing victim to thy thrall, 

Born of the locks that round thy brow- 
In wreathed darkness fall ; 

Nor of the dimpled loveliness 

Of cheeks as tinted, pure and fair, 

As the first rose that blooms to bless 
The Spring's maternal care : 

Nor of the beams divinely bright, 
That play within thy clear dark eyes, 
236 



LINES TO CLARA. 237 

Like Starry brilliances that light 

The gloom of midnight skies : 
Not all thy dower of native charms, 

Nor all thy trophies won from art, 
Could furnish love with forceful arms 

Against my guarded heart. 

But when, like some frost-stricken flower, 

The brightest in the fields of May, 
Thy gentle sister, hour by hour. 

Seemed fading fast away ; 
And thou, with sleepless care forlorn, 

Didst watch beside her couch of pain 
From darkling eve till brightening morn. 

From morn till eve again : 

Then was ambition's tyrant helm 

Struck down from manhood's passioned 
throne, 
And o'er my heart's recovered realm, 

Love made thee queen alone ! 
There shalt thou reign, whatever lot 

Be mine on time's eventful stream ; 
The theme of every waking thought, 

And every visioned dream. 



TO CLARA AND AGNES. 

OMEWARD as I came last night, 
Through the wintry twilight gray, 
Chanced I on as sweet a sight 
As I ever saw in May. 

'Twas a little Summer scene 
In the lap of Winter placed ; 

Like oasis fresh and green, 
In a dreary frozen waste. 

All beneath a glassy roof, 

Though the snows around were piled, 
In its covert, winter-proof, 

Sweet the little Eden smiled. 

Then I blest the florist's care, 
And I praised his happy skill, 

Who, when all was bleak and bare, 
Could have store of flowers at will. 

And I thought, how all might take 
Lessons from the floral sage ; 
238 



TO CLARA AND AGNES. 239 

And, with [jrudent forecast, make 
Summer grace the frosts of age ; 

Make a greenhouse in the breast 
For the flowers of hope and love, 

Till the gardens of the blest 
Ope to welcome them above ! 



DREAM OF RENT SHACKLES. 



EFORE my eyes, dream-haunted in repose, 
Slowly a mighty colosseum rose ; 
With which confronted, that by Tiber piled 
Were but the tiny doll-house of a child. 
And as I gazed the circling vastness, lo ! 
Came thronging in from all the winds that blow, 
An ebon multitude of every age, ^i ? 

As if all Slavedom were on pilgrimage ^^ | 

To some blest shrine, where scourge and chain at 

last 
Should fall forever, once its threshold passed 



Forlorn yet eager-eyed, the clanking files 
Swarmed the broad arches, climbed the spacious 

aisles. 
Till all the living crater, height o'er height, 
In dumb expectance, wonder-struck my sight 
Then (so the dream ran) from a central dais 
There rose a man, upon whose earnest face, 
Homely and careworn, shone in every line 
The human reflex of a soul divine, 
240 



^ 



DREAM OF RENT SHACKLES. 24 1 

And cried : " Henceforth, through all the years to 

be, 
By Freedom rescued, as her sons be free ! " 
And as the fiat on the silence swept. 
Instant from every limb the shackle leapt, 
Down-clanging thunderous, as a brazen height 
Shivered to atoms by a Titan's might ; 
While, like an outburst of the storm-swept sea, 
Swelled the wild pcean : " Free ! Forever Free ! " 



SALT RIVER. 



SIGHT to behold is Salt River ! 

Where Grant, with his finishing licks, 
Left the chivalry all of a shiver, 

Like ghosts by the under-world Styx. 



The stream — but 'tis all a misnomer 

To call it a stream, I wis — 
Would bafHe the genius of Homer 

To picture it just as it is : 

No zephyr its surface e'er dimples ; 

No gay fins, up darting, there glance ■; 
No whispering leafage bewimples 

Its desolate, dreary expanse. 

Dark reaches of ooze-blackened sedges 
The hideous shores make more foul, 

While thunder-scarred, lichenless ledges 
Athwart the weird ugliness scowl. 



242 



SALT RIVER. 243 

As I gazed at these terrible features, 

Blue gleaming in sulphurous light, 
A hulk, crammed with woe-begone creatures, 

Loomed near and more near on my sight. 

'J'he craft, to my wondering vision, 

A cross seemed 'twixt mud-scow and raft ; 

Propelled by rude gusts of derision. 
And simooms of curses right aft, 

Which fluttered the half-mast Palmetto, 
Where symbolized reptiles abhorred 

Made one think of a snake-lazaretto, 
With grim death acoil in eaCh ward. 

But the crowd of the Salt River clipper 

Eclipsed in forlornness its flag, — 
From Lee up to Davis, the skipper, 

And down to Toombs, Hampton and Bragg : 

All solemn and silent as dummies, 

Chop-fallen, cadaverous elves, 
They looked just like galvanized mummies 

Dismissed to rebury themselves. 

As they faded from sight in the distance, 
There pealed a tremendous guffaw : 
" Make room for the perjured resistants 
Of liberty, loyalty, law ! 



244 



SALT RIVER. 



Ay, room for the too long respited 
From wrath's pandemonian rod — 

Let the traitors to Man be requited, 
As erst were the lr.iitors to God ! " 



CAPirOLIAN SOLILOQUY. 

|0 Lincoln's dead, and / now President ! — 
The ways of Providence are dark indeed ; 
But sages, peering througli the gloom, discern 
That they do often lead to shining ends. 
Beyond the dead Chief, fallen in his tracks 
While groping onward with uncertain feet, 
I see a beckoning splendor like the morn's ! 
He was too gentle, too infirm of will, 
To meet the stern exactions of the time ; 
And so the patient Wisdom that o'er-rules 
Men's faults and failings for the general good. 
Removed him, as was meet ; and in his stead, 
Set one who hath no woman in his soul. 
When Justice girds him with her awful brand. 
Well may ye shrink and tremble at the flash 
Of its impending vengeance ! ye who've filled 
The fairest land whereon the sun e'er shone, 
With deeper gloom than all its forests shed 
Before the axe first smote their boundless aisles. 
Behold the desolation ye have wrought — 
The countless graves your bloody hands have filled 
245 



246 CAPITOLIAN SOLILOQUY. 

With martyrs battling for the rights of man, — 
Ay, even _>'i?«^i', who slew them with the sword, 
Or gave them, bound, to famine's sharper bale ! 
Behold the widows by a thousand hearths, 
The widowed sweethearts — never to be wives — 
From whose forlornness hope shall ne'er beguile 
The sackcloth and the ashes of despair ! 
Behold the myriad heroes halt and maimed. 
That but for your demoniac hate, had still 
Sustained the feeble, faltering steps of age ; 
And not themselves, in manhood's broken ])rime, 
Been shamed, the stclwart on the weak to lean ! 
These are the wrecks and ruins ye have wrought. 
Traitors ! and were my hand to stay the scourge 
That should make treason odious, and yourselves 
Abhorred, methinks the very stones would leap, 
The groves rush forward with their outstretched 

rods, 
To wreak the justice man had failed to do. 

What was that whispered in my ear but now : 
"Vengeance is sweet, but sweeter far is power " ? 
Get thee behind me. Tempter! — Yet who knows 
'Twas not the wiser second thought that spake ? 
If I do smite the smitten, make them take 
The back seat in the temple they profane);!, 
They'll storm or sulk, nor lend a beggar's staff 
To keep me steady on the lofty dais 
'J'o which assassination cleared my way. 



CAPirOUAN SOLILOQUY. 247 

But, say I turn my back upon myself, 

Ignore the brave words fulmined at their crimes, 

Ignore my solemn promises to those 

Whose faith and favor made me what I am. 

Forgive the babblers that proclaimed me boor. 

And hug the dear, good friends, whose fingers 

itched 
To have my weasand in their ready noose, — 
Why, then, if there be any grace at all 
In democratic bosoms. South or North, 
The alienated brothers must strike hands. 
Fall on each other's neck with joyful tears, 
And make the author of their making-up 
The happiest sequence of an accident 
In all the pregna.it histories of chance ! 



INSURANCE ECHOES ! 

SAINT PROMETHEUS. 



ACH Guild a sainted patron claims, 
And strives his praise to show forth — 
Saint George, Saint Pat, Saint Nick, Saint 
James, 
Saint Jonathan and so forth : 
But ours, we hold, must stand confest. 

Among all haloed actors. 
The grandest, blandest, brilliantest 
Of sainted benefactors. 

What but for his high-handed act 

Were now our genial planet, 
But one inhospitable tract 

Of glacial drift and granite ? 
With here and there a smokeless hut, 

Where clods with human features 
Lay hybernating, stark (all but), 

As Greenland's torpid creatures. 

Fire is the nutriment we crave. 
Yet crave in modest courses ; 
248 



INSURANCE ECHOES! 249 

A little makes lis strong and brave, 

A surfeit saps our forces ; 
Our eyeballs flash with lurid gleams 

From fate's volcanic crashes, 
And all our golden hopes and dreams 

Are turned to dust and ashes ! 

Therefore, dear Saint, give wise dissent 

To unrestrained fruition ; 
We flourish most in time of Lent, 

But perish of repletion ; 
So, when your bounty falls our way, 

As fate or chance disposes, 
Dispense your fiery favors, pray, 

In homoeopathic doses ! 

But not on self alone to build. 

Your salamandrine cravers, 
For our Big Brothers of the Guild 

Implore coequal favors — 
Ay ! patriarchal days for those 

Who, ware of Time's reverses. 
Prevent their darlings' future woes 

By drafts on present purses. 

To Beauty still give starry eyes. 
And soft sheet-lightning glances ; 

And in her lover's tropic sighs 
Melt all her frosty fancies ; 

To Hymen's torch give steadier sheen. 
More jnire, celestial splendor. 



250 INSURANCE ECHOESl 

Than earth has seen since Eden's queen 
Made love's first soul-surrender. 

" This sensible warm being " is 

The boon of your bestowing — 
Oh, keep, in veins and arteries, 

The vital currents flowing ! 
Let Health the silver cords of life 

Make long and strong as cables, 
To mock the grim old Scyther's knife, 

And Carlisle's mortal tables. 

Why should Time's. later children's breath, 

Alas ! be so uncertain ? 
Scarce step we on the stage, ere Death 

Lets fall the sable curtain ; 
Whereas, as every school-boy knows. 

The patriarchs would have wondered 
At Juliets sparked by Romeos, 

Before their second hundred ! 

Let Medicine's modern fountains, then, 

Make real Ponce de Leon's ; 
And life's poor three score years and ten 

Claim kinship with the eons ; 
While premiums pour so free and fast, 

As countless patrons rain them, 
That, like the wondrous *' books," at last. 

The world could scarce contain them ! 



THE POETRY OF FIRE INSUR/i^NCE. 



OME dreamers maintain, as a matter of 
fact, 
That this marvelous wide world contains not a 

tract, 
Not a nooklet, so utterly blasted and bare. 
That a poet can't still find some beauty-spot there. 

" How often, as Bruce and his Nubian band 

In their 'desert-ships ' toiled over oceans of sand. 

Some flower of the waste, like a waif from the 

skies. 
Thrilled their souls to the quick with a joyous sur- 
prise ! 

"When Kane made his home on that desolate 

shore 
Unmarked by the footprint of mortal before, 
Gay mosses upsmiled from perennial snows, 
And budded and bloomed where his quicksilver 

froze. 

251 



252 THE POETRY OF FIRE INSURANCE. 

" And they hold that the truth of this thesis ob- 
tains 
As widely in man's as in nature's domains ; 
That the Muse never found so degraded a race, 
Where she could not discern some sesthetical trace. 

" Well, the Seminole's hut, or the Hottentot's 
kraal, 

Perchance may some faint sense of beauty re- 
call ; 

But I'd fain like to know what poetical thrill 

Was ever yet due to a Polic)'-mill ? " 

And you shall know, anon, my incredulous friend, 
If those rather tall ears to my wisdom you'll 

lend ; 
For the theme is as full, this respondent conceives, 
Of poetical charms, as a rosebud of leaves : 

Whatever is lofty in nature or art ; 
Whatever is lovely in mind or in heart ; 
Whate'er, though of earth, is unearthy— behold, 
There Poetry points to her placers of gold ! 

Take the apposite case of the Asbestos Co., 
With its surplus, say One, with five ciphers in tow. 
Whence the Board, every half year, is free to de- 
clare 
Ten to twenty per cent. — isn't there poetry there ? 



THE POETRY OF FIRE INSURAXCE. 253 

Lucretius lias sung of the landman's delight, 
To stand all secure on some ocean-chafed height, 
And see, while the tempest remorselessly raves, 
The mariner tossed on the perilous waves. 

But who the poetical rapture can tell. 

Of a President, roused by the Citv Hall bell 

To some warehouse in flames, as he chuckles : 

"0-ho ! 
Our policy there expired some hours ago ! " 

And there's poetry, too, of that quizzical kind 

By critical experts Satiric defined, 

As he says to his friend: "If .the truth were but 

known, 
" Your policy then took the place of our own ! 

" For the broker, whose favor your Board still en- 
dures. 

Went straight, we perceived, from our counter to 
yours ; 

We felt rather vexed of the risk to be reft, 

But our loss, o'er the right, proves your gain, o'er 
the left ! " 

When a Chatham Street queer-nose, from Pesth or 

Cracow, 
" Vants cin bolice on sthock in mein sthore," so and 

so ; 



254 THE POETRY OF FIRE INSURANCE. 

How tempers poetical license the shock 

Of refusal, with "Sir, we are full on that block." 

Just see how the answer would look in plain 
prose : 

" There's the door, you can vanish — we don't fancy 
those 

Whose catskins turn beaver, whose pinchbeck, fine 
gold, 

If a spark, ten doors off, they but chance to be- 
hold ! " 

But, friends of the Guild, to leave jesting apart, 
And return to the sober concerns of our art ; 
I am free to declare, as my settled belief, 
That we're not only poets, but poets in chief. 

Let Fame call her roll of the Lords of the lyre, 
Who for ages have stood at the head of the choir ; 
And our brilliant Parnassus shall answer her thus : 
Stuff and nonsense ! they can't hold a candle to 

us ! 

Mass all the grand epics the trade ever sold 
(Your Homers, your Dantes), in tissues of gold ; 
And the expert whose home the Red demon de- 
vours 
Wouldn't take the whole lot for his five lines of 



THE POETRY OF LIFE INSURANCE. 255 

He has but to mention our two-leaved brochure — 
That poem of poems : " Do Hereby Insure," 
And, presto ! the nightmare of ruin takes flight, 
Like goblin caught napping by morn's sudden light. 

No matter how far his " burnt district " may be 
From the Guild, whose long arms reach from centre 

to sea ; 
He has only to whisper our magical strain, 
And what was, but is not, has being again. 

While the embers yet gleam and the smoke eddies 

still 
O'er the site of his mansion, shop, warehouse, or 

mill. 
Their doubles return large as life to his view. 
And all, Phcenix-like, from their ashes brand-new. 

Talk of authors renowned in the poetry line 
For their odes, and their paeans, and epics divine ; 
Why, our numbers long since even Milton's dis- 
crowned — 
For one Paradise lost, we've writ xti^x\d,^% found ! 



THE SAMSON OF THE HEARTH. 

NCE on a time there was a mighty man 
I Whose strength was in l\is locks, until his 
foes 
Found out their secret, and with glozing wiles 
Lured them away ; and then the mighty one 
Became a very infant in their hands. 
Yet, mindful of his prowess in the past, 
They held him firmly bound, nor felt secure 
Till they had quenched his sight in utter gloom. 
And even then his presence awed them so, 
They shrank to spurn him with their coward feet 
While prone in dust, or grinding at the mill, 
Daily and all day long, in blind despair. 
But when his shredded locks were grown again, 
And his tormentors, wild with insolent mirth, 
Made him the target of their gibes and jeers, 
He seized the pillars that upheld the fane. 
Profaned by their inhuman ribaldries, 
And, with one wrench of his resistless might, 
Buried the mockers and the mocked in death ! 
256 



I 



THE SAMSON OF THE HEARTH. 257 

I, Fire, am fellow of that vengeful slave ; 

I, the Sun-born ! to whom my bright sire gave 

The strength and glory of his own proud locks, 

And bade me share my gifts with all his worlds. 

Thought-swift, I glance from circling orb to orb. 

And, with the genial splendor of my smile, 

Clothe hill, vale, peak, cloud, lake, and billowy 

sea. 
To all the infinite forms within my scope 
1 bring free largess ; germ and bulb and root, 
Blind worm, and torpid chrysalis, feel my touch 
The wand of life ; the meadows laugh, the woods 
And orchards loose their buds to leaves, and flowers, 
And fruits, — the vital gems in Flora's crown. 
But man, the insatiate tyrant, in whose heart 
Even these rich guerdons leave an aching void. 
Conspired my thraldom, and with subtle arts 
Hath brought me into bondage to his will. 
AVhat is the task he does not put me to — 
Me, the Sun-born ? For him /grind and groan. 
Like my blind brother of the fateful locks ; 
I am his vassal of the caverned mine. 
The clanging forge, the thund'rous battle-field ; 
For him I melt the stubborn rocks to streams 
Of preciousness ineffable ; I flash 
His wants and wishes, instant, round the world ; 
Drive his great argosies from zone to zone ; 
And hold the torch that guides their darkling way 
Along the perilous clash of surge and shore. 



25^ THE SAMSON OF THE HEARTH. 

Ay, what the task he does not put me to ? 
I am his moiling chattel of all work ; 
But most of all, the bond-slave of his hearth. 
There, when from earliest morn to latest eve, 
I've cheered his home with comfortable warmth,. 
And light, and gladness, and have blest his board 
With viands meet to tempt the taste of gods — 
Even there and then, the ingrate heaps my locks 
With stifling ashes, and, without a thank 
Or careless "good-night," yawns him off to bed ! 
Then have I time, as ever the fierce will. 
To study vengeance on my slumbering foe. 
Unwatched, I watch keen-eyed, and pry. and peer 
For chink or cranny in my prison-wall ; 
And long and listen for the robber's stealth, 
Or wind's, or rodent's — ^ay, for anything 
To loose me from these contumelious bonds, 
And cricket mockers of my smothered wrath. 
Nor always long in vain ! for Accident, 
Though shooting wildly without mark or aim. 
Hath such exhaustless quiver to his bow, 
He needs must send a random shaft at last 
Just where my wishes pioneered its flight ! 
And when his lucky arrow hath set free 
My fettered limbs, I seize on aught that makes 
For sure enlargement — joist, or stud, or beam — 
And ever climbing roofward, fling anon 
My flaming banner to the rallying winds. 
Ashes for ashes, tyrants ! on your heads. 



THE SAMSON OF THE IJEARTJI. 



259 



Lo, now the gray dishonors pressed on mine ! 

Peal your loud larums, all your powers combine 

To stay the unbound Samson of the hearth ! 

Ha ! how I mock your frantic energies, 

I, the Sun-born ! as with resistless might 

I trample your fair homes to smoldering dust ; 

Trample the garnered riches of all climes, 

And the vast piles they choked from crypt to 

dome ; 
Ay, and the very temples of your gods. 
Where your young brows were hallowed at the font. 
Your wedded vows sealed swe(Jt with orange- 
blooms. 
And whence, in pallor and with dirge and knell, 
Wept or unwept, ye pass from mortal sight ! 

Thus do I visit vengeance on my foes ! 

Thus smite their braveries with my crimson 

scourge ! 
Sleepless, I watch and wait the time and chance 
To magnify the might of my dread locks. 
In fierce requital of the hoary wrongs. 
Shames, and serf-shackles I have borne from men. 
" Ashes for ashes ! " is the script I write, — 
I, the Sun-born, — upon the human waste. 
The double desert of their homes and hopes ! 



» 



SAFE AND SOUND. 

NIGHT. 

A SUBURBAN VILLA. 

soi.lDUS at a 'esk covered -with papers. 

HERE ! 1 have carefully gone o'er 
From first to last the precious store, 
And found my evening's labor crowned 
With the old joy, " All Safe and Sound ! " 
Men risk their thousands on a ship, 
That, in the first storm's frantic grip, 
May be o'erwhelmed or dashed ashore 
' Mid crash and shriek and brakers' roar. 
Men build their millions into walls 
Of temples, castles, villas, halls, 
For Time's slow mills (that rest nor rust !) 
To grind into their primal dust. 
And whose the vast statistic lore 
Can sum the mighty millions more 
Sown broadcast in the fields of life. 
For comfort, culture, peace or strife ? 
260 



SAFE AND SOUND, 26 1 

Of all the sower's varied seed 

How scant the harvest ! if, indeed, 

The cast do not so luckless fall, 

No harvest waits his hand at all ! 

His streams give out, or dams give way ; 

His workmen strike for higher pay ; 

His factories burn, or boilers burst ; 

His railroads grow from worse to worst 

With wear and tear and service slack, 

And cars alert to jump the track 

And rush their living freight to death. 

Or mulcts whose vastness stops his breath ; 

His agents filch, his bankers fail. 

His clerks and factors take leg-bail ; 

His gold and gilt-edged turn to dross — 

How oft his gains are gains of loss ! 

Now, look at these Insurance stocks ! 

Here"'s stanchness ! — here, indeed, are " rocks" 

Whose calm stability derides 

The utmost brunt of time and tides ; 

While from their generous lap descends 

A brilliant stream of dividends. 

Who would not have a vested right 

In such a fountain of delight 

His pocket's present thirst to suage, 

And mock the keener drouth of age ? 

Scarce than an angel seems he less, 

Who, in his depths of consciousness 



262 SAFE AND SOUND. 

(As in the block the sculptor sees 
The statue that all eyes shall please), 
First saw Insurance, and straightway 
Revealed her glories to the day. 
Insurance — that which makes one sure, 
Firm, fearless, stable, safe, secure ! 
What else of all life's fond pursuits 
Is blest with half these attributes ? 
And where does any mortal knew 
The peer of our Asbestos Co.; 
With capital of mammoth size, 
And surplus marvelous likewise ? 
Then, too, its corps of ofificers — 
All nonpareil philosophers, — 
With grandest gift of second-sight 
To pierce the future's blackest night : 
They saw Chicago's latent flame 
Long years before the outburst came ; 
Saw its vast piles in ruin fall, 
And desolation brooding all, 
Where pealed, but now, the din of trade, 
And life seemed one long masquerade — 
They saw it all with wise alarm, 
And kept a thousand miles from harm ; 
So that when burst the fire-storm there, 
No scrip of theirs got singed a hair ! 

O seers of ashes yet to be ! 
O pets of perspicacity ! 



SAFE AND SOUND. 263 

Ye were too serpent-shrewd by far 

To be befooled as myops are ; 

Or lured, like moths, to dire distress 

By risks of dazzling speciousness ! 

As charity begins at home, 

Yvur "lines " all hug the State-House dome, 

That from its sov'reign height looks down 

On every inch of Boston town. 

Its streets are, sooth, but winding lanes 

Vertiginous to stranger brains ; 

But then for width they make amends 

By peaks that court the clouds for friends ; 

Each member of tiie massive pile 

Made grander with his Mansard " tile." 

There ComiDerce heaps her varied store. 

In compact millions, floor on floor, 

Whence living streams of premiums flow 

To our world-famed Asbestos Co. 

True, rates are low, commissions high, 

And competition sharp and spry ; 

But, then, the Hub may justly boast, 

Each Red-Shirt is himself a host. 

Each engine a tamed cataract, — 

Niagara on wheels, in fact ; 

Where every risk is granite-clad 

(Safer old Petra never had !) ; 

Where products of stupendous worth 

Of all the industries of earth 

May fire and flame as calmly brave 

As merman in his deep-sea cave. 



1 



264 SAFE AND SOUND. 

But hark ! — what does that newsboy cry ? 
" Boston all burning ? "—What a lie ! — 
(Kling, ling !) — Ah ! here's a telegram. 

'Messenger, aside.) 

Guess boss'll t/iink, if not say, damn ! " 
i^Reads.) 

" Boston in flames from end to end ! — 
Whole blocks in ashes ! — worse, my friend : 
Our venerable Asbestos Co. 
Went up (no, down) an hour ago ! — 
Its scrip not worth a copper's toss ; 
Claimants — we can't pay half their loss ! " 

Saddle my swiftest, ho, you, sir ! 

I must to town, John, whip and spur [ 

Fire may, perhaps, melt granite blocks, 

But that my staid Insurance slocks 

To ashes could be made to fall 

(Asbestos ashes least of all !) 

Is matter for supreme surprise ; 

See it I must with my own eyes, 

Or hold it but a fable, though 

With her own lips Truth swear, 'Tis so ! 



THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. 

|HEN, long, long ago, on Olympus sublime 
Gods and goddesses led a right jolly old 
time, 
With nectar for champagne, ambrosia for bread. 
And amaranths crowning each aureoled head, 
As they feasted and chatted o'er partisan leagues. 
Or gave the bright hours to erotic intrigues, 
They had no more regard for poor humans down 

here. 
Than our city gods have for the muttons they shear. 

At last it befel that lapetus' son. 
Whose heart took no part in this frolic and fun, 
Gazed mournfully far through the nether abyss. 
As an angel might gaze on the exiled from bliss. 
Say, wherefore do tears dim those piteous eyes ? 
Ah, why should the breast of a god heave with 

sighs ? 
Would you know ? on the pinions of Fancy take 

flight, 
And see for yourself what so saddened his sight. 
265 



266 THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. _^m 

4 

Lo, Earth lies before you in horror outspread, " 

Cold, ghastly, and still, as the face of the dead ; 
Her mountains all swathed in parennial snows, 
Whose pallor the morn scarcely flushes with rose ; 
No peak to the night its red banner uplifts. 
Or with smoke veils the glare of its pinnacled 

drifts ; 
No surge breaks in thunder on sea-wall or shore, 
For the vast of her oceans is ice to the core ; 
And the murmur of rivers, the outlaugh of rills. 
No longer rejoices her valleys and hills ; 
While her cataracts, fast in weird fetters of frost. 
In a trance of white silence their voices have lost. 

Then he, from whose heart the warm tears had up- 
welled, 
As this desolate waste of a world he beheld, 
Cried fondly : " O Lord of Olympus ! restore 
The light of thy smile to yon outcast once more . 
Ah, see how Spring, Summer, and Autumn are fled 
From the scenes where their beauty and blessings 

were shed ! 
While Winter has stretched his usurping domains 
North to South, South to North, over green hills 

and plains. 
Till stark o'er the tropics his cold sceptre gleams. 
And but one zone now links the far polar extremes ! 
Oh, pity thy low-lying children of Earth, 
As in torpor they dream by the emberless hearth, 



THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. 267 

Whence no smoke-wreath by day, no dear gUmmer 

by nigl 
Gives token of comfort or social delight , 
And the voice of affection in cottage and hall, 
Is still as the cold lips low under the pall ! 
Save a moan here and there, all thy Earth-world is 

dumb — 
No peal of the bugle, no roll of the drum, 
No ring of the anvil, no hum of the mill. 
No cheer of blithe labor from valley or hill, 
No roar of thronged cities, no pathos of prayer, 
Sends a thrill to the soul of the desolate air. 

" Ah, lord of all worlds and their dwellers ! be- 
hold 

Thine altars are flameless, thy •censers are cold ; 

No garlanded victim is led to thy doors ; 

No chalice its sacred libation outpours ; 

And Flamen and Vestal, o'erwhelmed by thy scorn. 

In pallor and darkness He mute and forlorn. 

Oh, questionless monarch of mortals and gods ! 

Have pity at last on these human-faced clods ; 

With thy bright boon of fire hallow dwelling and 
fane, 

And let Earth's palsied wastes thrill with rapture 
again ! " 

Alas ! like the dew on some sand-smothered space, 
Or the cloud's flying kiss on the crag's iron face. 



268 THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. 

Fell the voice of the pleader on Jove's careless ear ; 
For it chanced that, just then, a young goddess 

smiled near. 
And of course his High-mightiness could not bestow 
A thought on his victims there under the snow. 



Indignant to find that his merciful zeal 
Could win no response to his yearning appeal 
He snatched a live brand from the god's gold 

hearth, 
And sped the bright spoil toward the dolorous Earth. 
Ere he touched her cold bosom, its life-kindling rays 
Have set her extinguished volcanoes ablaze ; 
And the long-silenced voice of her ice-cumbered 

streams 
Breaks out, like a bird's, in the rapture of dreams ; 
While the great heart of Ocean, transpierced by the 

glow 
Of that meteor-flame, feels a jubilant throe ; 
And hark ! how the rhythm of its pulse-beat once 

more 
Sends the tidings of joy to his uttermost shore ! 

And see ! as from headland to headland he hies. 

How the dead beacons flash their electric surprise 

Far forth, far around, over offing and bay. 

And Darkness, dethroned, shrinks bewildered away ! 

As onward he bears the glad largess of light. 

All Lares grow cheery, all hearths warm and bright ; 



en I 



i 



THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. 269 

And tea-kettles warble their long-silenced strains ; 
And sparking-lamps shine for love's lingering 

swains ; 
And foundry and forge smite the resonant air 
With clangor, and flame, and Cyclopean glare ; 
While the fierce iron-horse, as he dashes away, 
Shakes the echoing hills with his terrible neigh. 

As the torch-bearer bursts on this Gotham of ours. 
And the genial glow, mantling turrets and towers, 
Thaws the hoar that, for ages, had hidden from sight 
Their red-brick and brown-stone in cerements of 

white, 
Old Santa Claus, roused from his centuried spell, 
Sprang up and made tracks for the City-Hall bell. 
And giving full force to his vigorous arm, 
Made Night hold her ears at the stunning alarm. 
And, wonder of wonderful sights ! what are those 
That leap like red ghosts from yon hummocks of 

snows ? 
How they stare through the rime that bewimples 

their eyes ! 
How they beat their numb hands against thorax 

and thighs ! 
How they listen and count the quick strokes — 

' three ! five ! ten ! ' 
Why, bless our dull wits, these are Mose and his 

men ! 
And hark ! with what lungs most potential of noise, 
He trumpets, " Be lively now ; jump her, my boys ! " 



270 ■ THE PROMETHEAN FLAME. 

Or, with big mouth \z. good deal more open than 

shut) 
Thunders, " Sikesy, you son of a snail, take the 

but ! " 
And away they tear crashing o'er cobble and flag, 
As if fifty spurred Dexters strained hard at the 

drag. 

But the sight which the climax of wonder awoke, 

Was the guild of the resurrect Policy-folk, 

Of whose torpor-struck hosts not a frost-bitten soul 

For ages had taken one premium toll ; 

For their customers, stark in the general chill. 

Sent never the ghost of a grist to the mill. 

But lo ! now the wintry embargo is o'er. 

How jolly the sound of the grinding once more ! 

For patrons and brokers are thick as you please. 

And the millers, you bet, all more busy than bees, 

As city and country their hoppers astound 

With mountains of risks all agog to be ground ! 

Oh ye, whom the Bringer of Fire has thus blest, 
Let his name and his fame on your hearts be im- 
prest ; 
Or, rather, burnt into their nmermost core, 
For time to erase or deface never more. 
And I move, sir, that now every glass shall be filled 
To him who so specially favored our guild 
With that flambeau divine, that beneficent thaw — _ 
Three cheers for Prometheus — hip, hip, hurrah ! 



SONNET. 

SUGGESTED BY A VIEW OF SWAN I'OINT CEMETERY, 
PROVIDENCE, R. I. 



IVER, that lingerest in thy blithe career 
From the blue mountains to the dark blue 
sea, 
To list the passing-bell's stern monody, 
And love's lorn wail beside the loved one's bier — 
Say to the careless worldling sauntering near : 
" Speak low ! step softly ! as in awe profound ; 
For, know thou, this indeed is holy ground, 
Planted by God for his great Harvest Year. 
He will not let his seed forever lie, 
Germless and dead, within the stifling mold ! 
Though sown in weakness, it shall safe defy 
The worm, the storm, the Seasons' heat and cold ; 
And, in due time, from out the dust arise 
To his eternal garner of the skies ! " 



271 



SONNET. 

H, never, lady, can we hope to stand 
Acquitted debtors for the kindness done 



By thee and thine to our beloved one, 
When, lorn and friendless, in the alien land, 
She felt the warm clasp of your gentle hand. 
And heard fond words whose music seemed to be 
Home's own dear echoes from beyond the sea, 
Sweeter than gales from flowery Samarcand ! 
Oh, that, for once, were ours the magic art, 
In dearth of hopeless ingots of the mine, 
To coin the golden wishes of the heart. 
And grace the mintage with thy face divine — 
What precious stores our bosoms would impart ! 
What sumless coffers, lady, then were thine ! 



272 



SONNET. 

jHEN shall the free in name be free indeed ; 
Nor thou, my country, blush to own us sons, 
In whose degenerate bosoms coldly runs 
The blood of heroes whose immortal meed 
Was benison of trampled millions freed ? 
Blind slaves of this or that discordant clan, 
We sink the patriot in the partisan. 
And shout when friends, not principles, succeed. 
With sword and shield our fathers met the foe ; 
With tongue and pen we battle with our brother, 
And madly strive to stigmatise each other 
With uncouth names, worn threadbare long ago. 
In alien clash of whig and tory creed — 
Oh, when shall free-born men be free indeed ! 



273 



SONNET. 



TO A BEREAVED MOTHER. 



ORN mother of a young Immortal, fled 
So soon from thy fond arms and wistful 
eyes ! 

Who shall reprove thy ever-yearning sighs, 
Or bid the bitter tears remain unshed ? 
He was thy first-born, and his beauty fed 
Thy soul with manna from love's sweetest skies, 
Nor couldst thou deem a cherub in disguise 
Lay smiling on thee from his cradle bed. 
Thou couldst not see, within the moulded clay, 
The spirit's wings their latent splendors dart ; 
Nor hear the missioned angels fondly say 
To the pale shape so clasped to thy sad heart : 
" A throne is waiting in the realms of day — 
King of a new-born Sphere, let us depart ! " 



I 



DEAN STANLEY. 

[ITH grave, frank smile he took me by the 
hand, 

And gently earnest, drew me to his side — 
He, the great scholar of renown world-wide ; 
Me, all unknown even in my native land — 
And as I, listening, gazed upon his face, 
So wise, so winsome, yet so saintly grand, 
I longed that pride the charm might understand 
Of perfect goodness and unconscious grace. 
Then memory whispered : " Marvel not that one, 
Whose life in England's Pantheon is passed. 
Should fmd his kindred genius clothed upon 
With the effulgent glories round him cast, 
That fill the mighty minster's solemn pile 
From crypt to cross, as with an angel's smile ! " 



275 



THE ANABASIS. 

Sursura deorsum. — Flantus. 

Opaopei 6 ovpavoOev Bovi. — i^^wt-r (mostly). 

UGENE, and Frank, and I, three bosom- 
friends, 

Stood gaily chatting by the college-door, 
What time our merry mates, a furlong off. 
Made the gymnasium ring with boisterous glee, 
As was their wont before the evening task. 
Behind the curtain of the western hills 
The weary sun had sought his golden couch ; 
But, eastward still, athwart the shadowed vale, 
His passing glory flushed the lifted brow 
Of cloud-communing Graylock, as he stood 
With all his pines on tiptoe, gazing down 
Upon his brother Titan's gorgeous bed. 

As gradual twilight deepened round us there 
Commingling blithe discourse, the deacon's cow, 
A buxom beast, stole forth upon the lawn 
276 



THE ANABASIS. 277 

To snatch the dewy verdure, in such sort 
As one by sharp experience made too wise 
To eke fruition of forbidden fruit. 
Then Frank, with roguish gravity : " My friends, 
The good time coming is already come ! 
Our railroad age has sped improvement's car 
To cot, to hovel, yea to stall and byre ! 
Baboons are taught to sit at festive board ; 
Bruin to dance the minuet ; and I move 
That yonder cow be favored with a chance 
To rise above the commonwealth of kine, 
And stand, sublimely ruminant, on heights 
Ne'er scaled by bovine neophyte before ! " 

No sooner said, than, with a smothered burst, 

I seized the tether trailing from her horns ; 

While Frank, like Palinurus at his helm. 

Gravely officious, plied the tillered tail. 

No grass, I ween, did grow beneath her feet. 

Ere we had cleared the threshold with our charge ; 

When taking breath, and having skyward turned 

Her white-rimmed vision, up a zig-zag flight 

Of four-score stairs we eased our panting prize. 

From landing unto landing stumbling up, 

With such reverberate racket in the void 

And long-drawn corridors, as well might drown 

A band of Feejee tomtoms in full thud. 

Now, as it chanced, the. Tutor was abroad. 
But not nis key, which, nimbly seized and plied, 



278 THE ANABASIS. 

Gave access to his sanctum in a trice. 
Thither we urged his uninvited guest, 
Whom leaving with the Lares, off we sped. 
Each to his several chamber, sorely tasked 
To smooth rebellious wrinkles, and su]:)press 
Guffaws that wrestled with the aching ribs, 
And shook the central diaphragm for vent. 
As erst the prisoned winds old ^ol's cave. 

■Soon pealed the bell for evening tasks ; but scarce 

The buzzing swarm had settled in the hive, 

Ere came the Tutor round from room toroom. 

Beseeching aid, with face all crisp with smiles : 

For that a strange alumnus had made bold 

To scale his lofty sanctum, and install 

A most uncouth, unclassic presence there. 

Anon the halls were thronged with flaring lamps, 

As Pandemonium for a torch-light spree 

Had mustered all its imps ; and when the shout 

Excelsior echoed, up the oaken heights 

Two hundred heels went thundering all at once, 

Four stairs at every bound, and yells to match — 

A din to make an adder hold his ears. 

Just as the fore-front reached the Tutor's door, 
There came a crash, as of a dome of glass 
Shivered to atoms by a giant's rage ; 
For when the beast, already sore amazed. 
Beheld the goblin rout, and drank the glare 






' 



THE ANABASIS. 279 

Of those weird lights, stark mad with panic fear, 

She plunged the dizzy casement at a bound. 

And swept sash, blinds and all to outer night ! 

But kindly fates outsped her, and received 

The hairy meteor in the buoyant arms 

Of a subjacent maple, where she hung 

Pawing the rustling verdure, as it were 

A monster floundering in a green morass. 

Soon lanterns gleamed abroad, and ropes were 

plied, 
And those four sturdy legs, restored to earth, 
Dashed off without a limp in all their bones, 
The sequent tail outstanding straight behind ! 



ALUMNUS AND ALMA MATER. 

LINES READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW 
CHAPEL, WILLIAMS COLLEGE, AUGUST, 1859. 

|N a certain quaint town o'er the Canada line, 
While " looking about," as a Yankee is wont, 






I presently found myself posed to divine 
The use of a grim-visaged pile in my front. 

After gazing awhile at the mystical wall, 

I bowed myself in at its fortress-like door ; 

And lo ! the whole space of a half-acre hall 
Was swarming alive with an infantile corps. 

For breastplates they all sported white cotton bibs 
Over pinafores fragrant with indigo blue ; 

And Fancy at once fell to tickling her ribs 
With the guess of a National Baby Review. 

Composing my face, till no trace of a smile 

Showed that fun ever rippled its deacon-like calm, 
280 



ALUMNUS AND ALMA MATER. 



281 



Quoth I to the fair chief on duty the while : 

'■ Are all these, — excuse me, — your children, 
madanie ? " 

Up flew the plump arms with : ^^ Ma foi, quelle 7>ie'- 
prise ! " 

And a flush that almost set her coiffure ablaze — 
" Ce soni d'enfans troiivcs, moi, fille de l' eg Use, 

Non pas nitre de famille, a dieu quil ne plaise !" 

Slight cause to get miffed, friends, had mademoi- 
selle — 
For, if of a good thing one can't have too much, 
One can't have too many a good thing as well, 
And, for my part, I hold that the yonkers are 
such. 

{^Interrupted by a voice. ^ 

" So do I, too ! " " And, pray, who are yo^^ that 
make free 
In this muddle of rhyme to adventure an oar ? " 
" Why, lad, don't you know me ? " " Ah, yes, now 
I see ; 
Alma Mater ! How gladly I yield you the floor ! " 

"Well knew I, my son, I had only to glance 

At the place with such filial obeisance resigned, 

To be favored at once with the coveted chance 
To give that prim prude there a piece of my 
mind. 



282 ALUMNUS AND ALMA MATER. 

" Though she's so far away, it would wear7 a bird 
In a day's flight to traverse the interposed scene ; 

Never fear but I'd manage to make myself heard, 
Were there fifty Vermonts lying lengthwise be- 
tween. 

" So, Vestal, you think yourself specially blest 
That you ne'er rocked a cradle nor sung lullaby ! 

How dare you, with beauty's orbed glory of breast, 
Its whole anatomical purport belie ? 

"Had our foremother Eve never vouchsafed an 
heir, 
For that offspring are naught but incarnated sin, 
I would fain like to ask of your sapience, ' Where 
Would her possible Adams and Eves now have 
been ? ' 

" From the day the first minstrel gave voice to the 
lute, 
The flowers have bloomed out in all manner of 
lays ; 
But methinks 'twould have been quite as well if the 
fruit 
Had come in, now and then, for a part of the 
praise. 

" Had you followed your mother's example, my lass, 
And been graced with the crown that to wifehood 
enures. 



ALUMNUS AND A LAI A MATER. 283 

You wouldn't have thought my alumnus an ass 
For asking if those blessed babies are yours. 

" Now just look at vie and the honest truth speak — 
Am I not still erect, buxom, fresh, debonair? 

Would the leaf of a blush-rose, if laid to my cheek, 
Be seen, or if seen, look discountenanced there ? 

"Yet the mandate, 'Be fruitTul,' and so forth, for 
years 
I have strictly obeyed, nor once dreamed to 
ignore. 
Till my family census at present appears 

(Here's the catalogue. Miss) above one hundred 
score ! 

"All boys — every one — an adelphian throng, 

For I've travailed till now but the masculine way ; 

Though, perhaps, like my Oberlin sister, ere long 
I may bring in the crinolines, just for fair play : 

" For if the first Coelebs went sighing, until 

A sweet chum smiled near, as we're taught by the 
muse ; 
Is it strange that his celibate offspring should thrill 
At the thought of the same rosy cure for the 
blues ? 

" But we'll not stop to ponder what may come to 
pass 
In the hopeful Hereafter that fancy foretells, 



284 ALUMNUS AND ALMA MATER. 

When the honors and parchments which fall to each 
class, 
Shall (a full half at least) be the spoil of its belles. 

" To return to the boys — not the motherless ones, 
That your Montreal Bastile forlornly immures — 

Waifs — fiullius filii — nobody's sons, — 

No wonder you don't like to own they are yours ! 

" But the lads I am proud as a queen to call mine, 
As born of my loins and fain nursed at my breast, 

Whose heart tendrils all with my own intertwine 
In a plexus of love, like the souls of the blest. 

"What a family group were my darlings to-day. 
From the four winds recalled, at their mother's 
knee found ! 
The ten-acre Mission Park over the way. 

Could hardly make room for a good hug all 
round. 

" Yet proud as I were such a household to greet, 
I have barely begun my maternal career ; 

Just wait till I give Doctor Hopkins the treat 
To christen and bless a full hundred a year ! 

" And fear not my motherly means will give out, 
Though new mouths come in by the great gross 
or more : 



ALUMNUS AND ALMA MATEK. 



285 



Not a true son of mine but will strive, never doubt, 
That Want, the gaunt wolf, shall not darken my 
door. 



** Not one of them all I have sent to the field 
To bear his just part in the battle of life, 

But would rather be borne to me stark on his shield, 
Than live to disgrace me by shirking the strife. 

"Wherever their lines in this fair world are cast. 
No Tempe can charm like their mother's domain ; 

And the years in her lap with the Muses there 
passed. 
Are those they would soonest live over again !" 



ALMA MATER IN TOWN AGAIN ! 



BiSg 



EAR Alma ! we know you are wise as Ju- 
piter's brain-ruothered daughter, 
And love your fair home passing well in beautiful, 

dutiful Berkshire ; 
But your visits so frequent of late to this wonder- 
ful, thunderful Babel, 
Are riddles immensely beyond the uttermost scope 

of our guessing. 
You surely have heard the old saw, that the rolling 

stone gathers no mosses ! 
Do wise fellows cotton to girls whose gadding hints 

holes in their stockings? 
The spinning of street-yarn is not the kind by New 

England commended 
In spinster or wife, and of all, least of all in her 

paragon mothers. 
For yoti, then, O Mater, with arms so freighted 

with family pledges, 
The wife of John Rogers would seem a childless 

forlorn one beside you, 
286 



AIJ/A MA-'ER IN TOWN AGAIN. 287 

To wrest your dear face from them all, twitch 
your apron-strings out of their fingers, 

Bolt nursery- door and make tracks, as if from a 
pest-house of foundlings — 

Ah, Alma, for you to turn tramp, we couldn't have 
dreamed such a scandal ! 

It may be all right you should give tired lap, 
arms, and bosom a respite — 

No fondest of mothers quite likes to play the peren- 
nial fountain ; 

But where was the need you should seek for respite 
and recuperation 

'Mid the roar, and the rush, and the crush of this 
metropolitan bedlam ? 

Our Berkshire, for souls tempered right, is fraught 
with serene satisfactions ; 

The school-house and church, side by side, have 
nurtured her people to cherish 

The golden mean of content, next the golden rule 
of the Master. 

Her streams are the clearest that e'er were born of 
the cloud's purest crystals ; 

Than hers, never lake mirrored charm of sunsets 
more kindred to Eden's : 

In Summer her valleys and hills take captive the 
heart of the stranger ; 

In Autumn, his faith that the court of Iris here tis- 
sues her rainbows ; 



258 ALMA MATER IN TOWN AGAIN. 

In Winter, that giants are camped from border to 

uttermost border, 
Their white tents all warded the while by Greylock's 

imperial pavilion. 

But, Alma, since all these delights were powerless 

to hold you to Berkshire, 
Pray, what was the magical charm that sundered 

the matronal tether ? 
We're sure it could never have been the bewildering 

glamour of fasliion — 
The craving to see the last styles of coiffures and 

panniers prodigious, 
Wherewith the town belles so astound the vision of 

men and good angels. 
Eureka ! I have it at last — you wanted to see the 

scarred veterans 
You sent to the field in their prime, to push things 

for man and his rights ; 
And as, in the terrible stress, they couldn't break 

ranks and go to you, 
You've followed Mohammed's wise course, and 

made the St. J^amess your " mountain." 
I hope you didn't dream to find all your old boys 

stelligerent chieftains ? 
Remember that He who records the aims andj 

the efforts of duty, 
May write the " high private's " as high on the page 

of desert as his general's. 



ALMA MATER IN TOWN AGAIN. 289 

Howbeit, we all, great and small, low and lofty, 

rejoice in your presence, 
Whatever, dear Alma, the cause that has brought 

you again unto Gotham. 
We welcome you, all, heart and soul, and glowing 

with filial emotion, 
Take pride in the pride you must feel in the fame 

of your peerless Justinian ; 
Take pride in your matronly pride to lean on the 

arm of your Howard, 
Whereon the great Martyr oft leaned in the stress 

of the terrible conflict ; 
Share your pride in the soldierly son whose sword 

brought the might of a legion 
To Thomas, death-doomed by the foe, on the banks 

of the red Chickamauga ; 
Ay, thrill with the pride of your pride to gaze in the 

eyes of your laureate, 
And hold, palm to palm, in your own, the hand that 

had writ Thanatopsis ; 
To think how your pupil had come to be so suc- 
cessful a Grecian, 
That Homer had learned from his lips to sing in 

such glorious English, 
He couldn't tell which to prefer, his own or the 

tongue of his tutor ; 
Then mark how he carried his years, as if but the 

down of a thistle, 
And, patting his white. locks, exclaim : " How meet 

for the evergreen laurel ! " 



HAPSBURGH'S RAMPARTS. 

FROM THE GERMAN OF KARL SIMROCK. 

In Aargau, from a frowning height, 
A castle mocks the cannon's might ; 
Who bade it crown 
A steep that on the clouds looks down ? 

The cost was Bishop Werner's care ; 
Count Radbot's task to plant it there : 
Not large, but strong, 
The Hawksnest perched the crags among. 

The bishop came and viewed the pile, 
And skaking his gray locks the while, 
Said : " Count, no wall 
Nor rampart have we here at all ! " 

" What matters that ? " the count replied ; 
" God's temple, Strasburg's crowning pride, 

Was built by you. 

But wall nor bastion has thereto ! " 
290 



t 

I 



HAP SB URGH' S RA MPAR TS. 29I 

"Yet stands secure from fire and sword. 
The house I builded for the Lord ; 
But 'gainst their power, 
A castle needs both wall and tower." 

" Well spoken, brother ; yes, I see ; 
For such, strong bulwarks there musi be— 
Grant brief delay ; 
I'll have them here ere dawn of day.'' 

And from the roused vales, far and near, 
His summoned hosts at morn appear ; 
And, band on band, 
Around the fortress take their stand. 

Then rang the count's horn from the steep, 
And roused the bishop from his sleep — 
" The ramparts, ho ! 
More magic feat what power can show ? " 

In fluttering wonder from his bed 
The bishop to the casement sped ; 
And, marshalled, sees 
A host in steel-bright panoplies. 

With blazing bucklers, man to man, 
Stand like a wall, the count's liege ban ; 
While many a knight, 
High-mounted, towers in stalwart might. 



292 HAPSBURGH'S RAMPARTS. 

"Count," smiled the priest, "heroic pride 
In walls like these may well confide ! 
For naught can be 
So strong as martial loyalty." 

And thus may Hapsburgh's living walls 
Forever guard its menaced halls ; 
And glorious stand 
A refuge for all German land \ 



m 



WONDER. 

FROM THE GERMAN OF NOVALIS. 



HE mead took on a tender green, 

Faint bloom about the hedge was seen ; 
And every day new plants appear ; 
The air was soft, the sky so clear ! 
I knew not how my eyes were spelled, 
Nor how that was which I beheld. 

And aye the grove more shadowy grew, 
As birds their vernal homes renew ; 
Whence stole to me, from all sides round., 
Their descant of melodious sound ; 
I knew not how my ears were spelled, 
Nor how that was which I beheld. 

Now gushed and revelled everywhere, 
Life, color, music, dulcet air ; 
And all in such sweet union met, 
That each, the while, seemed lovelier yet ; 
I knew not how my sense was spelled. 
Nor how that was which I beheld. 
293 



294 WONDER. 

Then mused I, Is't a soul awakes, 
Which all things thus so vital makes ; 
And will its presence manifest 
In thousand forms by Flora drest ? 
I knew not how my sense was spelled. 
Nor how that was which I beheld. 

A new creation it must be ! 
Loose dust becomes a blade, a tree, 
The tree a beast, the beast a man 
Complete in action, shape, and plan ; 
I knew not how my sense was spelled, 
Nor how that was which I beheld. 

As thus I stood in wildered thought. 
With pulsing bosom passion-fraught, 
A charming maiden near me stole, 
And captive took my sense and soul ; 
I knew not how my heart was spelled, 
Nor how that was which I beheld. 

The greenwood veiled us from the day ; 
It is the Spring ! Love's own sweet May ! 
And tiow I saw, in this new birth, 
That men become as gods on earth ; 
And well I knew, each doubt dispelled, 
How all was so as I beheld ! 



THE GIANTS AND THE DWARFS. 

FROM THE GERMAN OF RUCKERT. 

ROM father giant's castle, 

Sublime in feudal state, 

Forth hied his buxom daughter 

In merriest mood elate ; 
And in the vale she found, erelong, 

The oxen and the plow. 
And eke the peasant who, to her, 
Seemed small enough, I trow. 

Of oxen, plow, and peasant 
She made a general sweep. 

And sped them in her apron 
Up to the giant's keep ; 

When father giant muttered : 
" My child, what have you done ? " 

Quoth she : *' Just see my pretty toys ! 
O my ! what lots of fun ! " 

The father gazed and grumbled : 
" That's very bad, my dear ! 
295 



296 THE GIANTS AND THE DWARFS. 

Back M'ith them to the furrow, 

From whence you hied them here ! 

For if the dwarfs cease plowing, 
The fields lack tilth of corn ; 

We giants en the heights must starve, 
So sure as you are born ! " 



WHERE? 



FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE. 



HERE shall wanderer, worn and hoary, 
On his last long couch recline ? 
Under palms in Southern glory ? 
Under lindens on the Rhine ? 

Shall my corse to earth be hurried 
In the waste by stranger hands ? 

Or on some lone coast be buried, 
Sea-dirged, in the drifted sands ? 

All is one ! — God's heaven as brightly 
Will bend o'er me there as here ; 

And its stars, like death-lamps, nightly 
Watch my slumbers, just as near ! 



297 



THE FIRST SONG. 

FROM THE GERMAN OF BARON HOUWALD. 



I'ER half the globe, a minstrel guest, I'd strayed 
from zone to zone. 
And foreign tongues could, speak and write, as 

aptly as my own ; 
I heard the great ones of my time, familiar, call me 

friend, 
And oft from thrones saw royal hands, to welcome 
mine, extend. 

Now on the Svvitzer's hoary Alps, then where Pom- 
peii sleeps, 

Anon beside the Pyramids, then by La Plata's 
deeps — 

There have I shown my lyric power, and there the 
poet's verse 

A thousand hearts reecho fain, a thousand lips re- 
hearse. 

At length, with honor's emblem star upon my swell- 
ing breast, 

293 



THE FIRST SONG. 299 

The rapture of a glorious name, my bosom's con- 
scious guest, 

I turned me from the alien lands tovv'rd that mag- 
netic spot, 

Where stood, in childhood's happy years, my long- 
forsaken cot. 

And when from the last hill-top, by the old Runen- 
Mall, 

I saw again my native vale, so bowery and so 
small, 

With conscious pride I fondly cried : Thanks, Fate, 
miscalled the stern ! 

How unregarded went I forth, how glorious I re- 
turn I — 

Then up the hill a woman pale, a fair child in each 

hand. 
Came slowly to the turfen seat near which I chanced 

to stand ; 
And resting there, a strain began, with voice so 

sweet and low, 
Its pathos touched me to the heart, yet why, I did 

not know. 

Then modestly I questioned her : Whence came this 

simple song ? 
She answered : From the happy days of long ago, 

so long ! 



300 THE FIRST SONG. 

A young friend breathed it to his lyre to soothe 

love's parting pain — 
Ah, then I fondly recognized my own, my earliest 

strain ! 

And farther asked I, earnest : Who gave this song to 

thee? 
'Tis known, she blushing faltered, to no one but to 

me!— 
So, then, thou art the Mary of this young minstrel's 

spell ? 
No answer. — Pray, where lives he now ? — Alas, I 

cannot tell ! — 

No news of him has reached thee since ? — No faint- 
est word, not one ! — 

Has he not written other lays ? — I know but this 
alone ! — 

His name ? — Ah, friendly stranger, the vain request 
give o'er ! — 

It may be that I know him — But me he knows no 
more ! — 

Yet, prithee, sing me once again, just once, that 
little song ! — 

My husband, yonder, waits for me and these dear 
ones, full long ! — 

And, eftsoon, in the winding lane, amid the low- 
land farms. 



THE FIRST SONG. 3OI 

I saw the stranger's wife and babes clasped, clasp- 
ing, in his arms. 

There stood the lofty poet, whose fame world-wide 
was flown, 

A stranger in his native vale , to all but One un- 
known ; 

Stood, where of old he sang forlorn, yet less forlorn 
than now, 

And gave to that forgotten song the garland from 
his brow ! 



THE SISTERS OF DESTINY. 

FROM THE GERMAN OF HERDBR. 

^^^ ALL not Destiny inhuman ; 
IfeM^I Name not her allotments spite ! 
Her decree is truth eternal, 
Clearest proof of Love supernal ; 
And Necessity, her might. 

Look around, friend, keenly scanning 
All things, as the wisest may ; 

What must pass, no power restraineth ; 

What can stand fast, fast remain eth ; 
What must happen, happens aye ! 

Lovely are the fateful Sisters — 

Not, not Furies, wan and dire ! 
From their fair hands softly issues 
Endless weft of magic tissues, 
For the Graces' soft attire. 

Ever since sprang youthful Pallas, 
Perfect from her god-sire's brain ; 
302 



THE SISTERS OE DESTINY. 303 

She the golden veil prepareth, 
Which the starry welkin weareth 
In the aeons' endless train. 

And the Parcse's gaze hangs steady, 

Fixed on their supreme employ ; 
As, in worm's and angel's dower, 
Faultless wisdom, goodness, power. 
Blend truth, harmony, and joy. 

Therefore, call not Fate inhuman, 
Nor her stern allotments, spite ; 

Her decree is truth eternal ; 

Her gifts, proof of Love supernal ; 
And Necessity, her might ! 



THE SMACK IN SCHOOL. 

ID Berkshire hills, not far away, 
A district school, one Winter day. 
Was humming with the wonted noise 
Of three score mingled girls and boys ; 
Some few upon their tasks intent. 
But more on furtive mischief bent. 
The while the master's downward look 
Was fastened on a copy-book ; 
When, suddenly, behind his back, 
Rose sharp and clear, a rousing smack. 
As 'twere a battery of bliss 
Let off in one tremendous kiss ! 
** What's that ? " the startled master cries , 
"That, thir," a little imp replies, 
" Wath William Willitli, if you pleathe — 
I thaw him kith Thuthannah Peathe ! " 



With frown to make a statue thrill, 
The magnate beckoned : " Hither, Will ! 
Like wretch o'ertaken in his track, 
With stolen chattels on his back, 
304 



THE SMACK IN SCHOOL. 305 

Will hung his head in fear and shame, 
And to the awful presence came — 
A great, green, bashful simpleton. 
The butt of all good-natured fun. 

With smile suppressed, and birch upraised. 

The threatener faltered : " I'm amazed 

That you, my biggest pupil, should 

Be guilty of an act so rude — 

Before the whole set school to boot — 

What evil genius put you to't ? " 

" 'Twas she herself, sir," sobbed the lad ; 

** I didn't mean to be so bad ; 

But when Susannah shook her curls. 

And whispered I was 'fraid of girls, 

And durstn't kiss a baby's doll, 

I couldn't stand it, sir, at all. 

But up and kissed her on the spot ! 

I know — boo hoo — I ought to not ; 

But, somehow, from her looks — boo hoo — 

I thought she kind o' wished me to ! " 



LOVE'S ATTIC IDYL. 

jHEN, erst, from " keeping company," 
To keeping house we went, 
As poor in worldy gear were we, 
As rich in heart content. 

Two chairs were ours, but on my word. 

One only was required. 
For you my lap as much preferred, 

As I your choice admired. 

Three goblets graced our dresser trim. 

But one the board supplied ; 
And where your red lip kissed its brim, 

That was my nectar side. 

One eve, some twelvemonth from the date 

Our wedding tablet bore. 
The doctor's gig stopt long and late 

Before our anxious door. 

And when at last it stole away 
Our gravely-smiling guest, 
306 



LOVE'S ATTIC IDYL. 307 

A little rosy stranger lay 

Beside your fluttering breast. 

No sleep that night surprised my joy, 

Or dulled my fond amaze ; 
Our first-born babe a baby-boy ! 

What could I do but gaze ? 

Some other strangers since have come, 

And still we've room for more ; 
Don't blush — all told, the precious sum 

Is not yet half a score. 

And Fortune, too, though fabled blind, 

Has found our attic nest. 
And left memorials behind. 

That speak the gracious guest. 

Ah, were our sands of wedded life. 

Computed as they fall, 
How far its blessings, gentle wife, 

Would oversum them all ! 



DAME SALISBURY'S PUDDING. 

DARE say you've heard, but if not, now 
you'll know, 
That, down East, when a colleger's pocket runs 

low, 
He just looks about for some vocative school. 
And makes for it straight as a duck for a pool. 
Well, once on a time, forced by Fortune to search 
For the shiners myself, having cut me a birch, 
In a certain quaint district, while " boarding 

around," 
Cosy quarters, at last, at the Deacon's I found ; 
Where the snug kitchen still, as in primitive days, 
With its arm-chairs, and settles, and cordwood 

ablaze. 
Was the heart of the home, and more comfort en- 
shrined,, 
Than scores of your new-fangled parlors combined. 

'Twas a Saturday eve, and, by custom antique, 
Hasty-Pudding must crown the last meal of the 
week ; 

308 



DAME SALISBURY'S PUDDING. 309 

So the great iron pot for concocting the same 

Was presently hung o'er the jubilant flame, 

And the goodwife, forewarned by " help's " frequent 

default, 
With her own hand made sure the right quantum of 

salt. 
She had scarce left the hearth when her eldest-born, 

Rose, 
Bloomed in, and, all innocence, dittoed the dose. 
And glided away (how the charm of the place 
Seemed to vanish at once with her beauty and 

grace !) 
As Sue, sweet sixteen, tripping in, followed suit, 
Unawares, with a fresh supersaline salute, 
And was gone like a sylph as " help " darkened the 

door, 
And astonished the brine with a round handful 

more, 
Then hied for the meal-tray and ladle ; whereon 
I up with the near-standing salt-box anon, 
And in with the whole, laughing : " There, I opine. 
If this pudding's too fresh, faith the fault wont be 

mine ! " 

By and by, when transferred to the white-kirtled 

board. 
And each plate with a Benjamin's portion was 

stored. 
Flanked with syrups of maple and patties of gold, 



3 1 DA ME S A LI SB URY'S P UDDING. 

And milk the town-pump never uddered, behold 
The Deacon said grace with the unction and air 
Of a mortal scarce worthy such fit-for-gods fare ; 
Then fell to, stopped short, sputtered : " Lot's wife ! 

O my ! 
Who salted this, Martha ? " — " /, husband ''dear, 

why ? " — 
"So did I, Ma," blushed Rose; "and I," tittered 

Sue ; 
"Goodness' sake!" exclaimed "help," "why, I 

salted it too ! " 
Then quoth I : " Add me in, for the truth to confess, 
I, likewise, my friends, had a hand in the mess, 
As the air in the salt-box my witness will be ; 
For, seeing you all with its contents so free, 
I followed your savory example perforce — 
At Rome, you know, one does like Romans, of 

course ! " 

"Well, friends," smiled the Deacon, "just taste now, 

and see 
If your palates with mine don't exactly agree : 
That too many cooks are as sure, in plain troth, 
To better a pudding no more than a broth ! " 



'^M 



THE ROOTED SORROW. 



HEY may preach as they please, smiled the 
fair Leonore, 
That beauty has wings, but I find it not so — 
My image still wears the same graces it wore, 

When I looked in the bridal-glass, summers ago. 

The cheek of the matron perhaps may betray 

A shade less of rose than embellished the girl's ; 

But the tint is as fresh, and the dimple as gay. 
As the maiden ones kissed by these glossy brown 
curls. 

Thus saying, she brushed the fair ringlets aside, 
And gazed, but the smile was soon chased by a 
frown, 

As her eye, in the tale-telling mirror, espied 
A strange silver thread interlacing the brown. 

Anon, through her tremulous fingers she drew 
The tress in whose ambush the pale spectre lay ; 

But alas, too impatient for clearness of view. 

She banished three dark hairs to one of the gray ! 
3" 



312 THE ROOTED SORROW. 

Again and again to the task she applies, 

Resolved her fair brow shall be rid of its shame, 

Till warned to relinquish her hopeless emprise. 
Since the brown locks alone were the worse for 
her aim. 

The moral of this is to bear and forbear, 

Let time do his worst with our gardens of rose ; 

Lest, seeking to root out one innocent tare. 

We wound but the flowers where it harmlessly 
grows ! 



TO ESTELLE. 

EVER see me more, you say ! 
I And worse yet, Forget me ! 
But pray, how can 1 obey. 
If the fates won't let me ? 

Were primeval gloom, Estelle, 
These charmed eyes to visit ; 

I should see you just as well 
Without light as with it ! 

Nay, to heighten your surprise, 
When you've grandly wondered ; 

See you just as well sans eyes, 
As with Argus' hundred. 

As for that " Forget me," — ah ! 

Prithee don't renew it ! — 
'Ti* not in mandragora 

To begin to do it. 

Image of such witching grace, — 
Love's own photographing — 

Lethe's self could ne'er efface, 
Though one died of quaffing ! 
3^3 



SOME VIEW THE WORLD. 

OME view the world with jaundiced eye, 
And see but one sad, sallow tint ; 
And some, with vision so awry, 

All seems to mock them, squint for squint 






But, brother of the sickly spleen, 
This bilious reflex you may find 

Less oft the tinge of objects^seen, 
Than of yaur own discolored mind. 

Just take contentment's magic glass, 

Obedient to the wiser muse. 
And you shall see the sallow pass 
Lito the rose's charming hues. 

And you, my captious, cross-eyed friends, 
Who see all outward forms awry ; 

The muse a sovereign means commends 
Their mocking lines to rectify. 

Take hope's kaleidoscope, and all 

Your shivered plans and faded dreams 
Once more to perfect shape shall fall, 

And elow with 'all their pristine beams. 
314 



WHEN I WAS RICH. 

|HEN I was rich — ah, doleful IV/ien, 
So doomed to evanescence ! 
What strong attractions centered then 
In my complacent presence ! 

How brightly fell the golden sands 

Of careless, cloudless leisure ! 
How fain were fashion's jeweled hands 

To feel my answering pressure ! 

Where'er I sauntered, hats were raised, 

As if a prince were passing ; 
Whate'er I said or did, was praised 

As meet for highest classing. 

My taste, my style, my gait, my dress 
For all times, cool or sultry — 

My whole, indeed, was nothing less 
Than culture's ne plus ultra. 

If cards went out for feast or rout, 
No soul their magic slighted — 

Storm, whirlwind, megrims, blues nor gout, 
Kept home my dear invited. 

315 



3lO WHEN I WAS RICH. 

They pledged my name in many a toast, 
As proud sons might a mother's : 
" Whatever fate befall our host, 
He still shall find us brothers ! " 

And so I did, till Fortune frowned, 
Then snapt the brittle tether ! 

And all my dear good friends I found 
Blind, deaf, and dumb together. 

Of every tie, from first to last. 

Their memory showed no vestige ; 

The glamour of my wealth once past, 
What had I left of prestige ? 

My wines were drunk, my coffers drained. 
My halls and lands, another's ; 

Myself my only friend remained, 
Of all that band of brothers. 

Ah, well ! to each his several road, 
The false, the frail, the fickle — 

Content may reap where Folly sowed, 
If Wisdom lend her sickle ! 



MY TAILOR AND I IN THE LATE PANIC. 

ARTOR, quoth I, the suit is well enough ; 
I find no fault, with stitching, style, or stuff: 
But as for this marsupial display, 
What crotchet could have led you so astray ? 
Are you such Rip Van Winkle of a goose 
As still to dream that pockets are in use, 
When Astor scarcely can with truth be said 
To have the handling of a single ' red ' ? 
Pockets in times like these ? sir, 'tis no less 
Than wasteful and ridiculous excess ; 
As who should build a many-chambered bin, 
In a great dearth, to garner nothings in. 
Out with your shears ! Come, man alive ! don't 

shrink, 
But off with these lean sarcasms in a twink, 
Whose presence, like the spendthrift's empty purse, 
But serves to make the aching void still worse. 
Well done ! And now, with no more fret or fuss, 
That ])atieat little bill I'll honor — thus : 
" Cashier of Hades' Bank, at blind man's sight, 
Pay bearer's ghost, -and debit mine. All right." 
317 



SOFT AND SOFTER. 

NE eve, in velvet bravery arrayed, 

As Phil sat toying with his darling maid, 
Her little buxom waist's bewitching charm 
The while half-folded in his furtive arm ; 
He took her dimpled hand, and, with a smile, 
Stealing it gently o'er the silken pile, 
Asked, in a tender silence of love-chat, 
If palm e'er fondled aught so soft as that. 

She archly answered : " Might I venture, pet, 
I could press yours on something softer yet." 
With sidelong glance of amorous mistrust 
Adown the graceful neck and swelling bust, 
Whose ermine cape, his daring fancy taught. 
Was the coy ' something ' of the maiden's thought 
He fondly sighed, to fingers' ends a-thrill : 
"Ah ! dearest, do — my hand is at your will ! " 
But O lost rapture ! — for, no sooner said, 
She gayly clapt it pat on his own head ! 



318 



ALWAYS CHEERFUL. 



LWAYS cheerful " — yes, my friend ; 
'Twas my motto from the first, 
That ill luck is like to mend 

When the bad has reached the worst. 

Know you not, the arc that lies 

Deepest in the rutted clay, 
Is the sole one sure to rise, 

Let the wheel roll either way ? 

When my questioned purse is dumb, 
Shall I whimper ? Nay, but sing : 

Let the jingling goddess come, 

Now there's room for all she'll bring ! 

If the merry hint she slight, 

Still I'll carol as I go : 
Empty pockets are so light, 

By my fay, 'tis better so ! 

Then as pomp sweeps bravely by. 
Charioted in flashing state ; 
319 . 



J20 AL WA YS CHEERFUL. 

Which is safer, he or I, 

Needs, methinks, but brief debate. 

If a rein or axle fail, 

Or his brisk bays mock his trust. 
Prithee, what an ugly trail 

He may leave along the dust ! 

As for love, why fret or mope 

If one charmer prove unkind ? _ 

Surely 'twere more wise to hope 
All the sex not quite so blind. 

Should my merits find them so, 

TJiis shall make me lighter grieve ; 

" Coelebs ! v/hat a world of woe 
Adam found in finding Eve ! " 



NUMBER ONE. 

|a'^|d|OR Christ's dark Rule at last I've got 
|B.^|| The rendering clear and true : 
Do unto others as you'd not 
Have them do unto you ! 

Owe no man anything, says Paul — 

As if he knew what's right ! 
/ say, owe all you can to all, 

And keep your purse-string tight. 

It's waste of substance, want of sense, 

To pity and befriend ; 
What were the use of Providence, 

If men fulfil its end ? 

Am I my brother's keeper ? — Who 

Will mind the risks / run ? — 
No, let him care for number Two, 

As I for number One. 

Free course to tender sympathies 
Let genero.us fools accord, 
321 



322 NUMBER ONE 

Who dream that their ahnsgiving is 
A lending to the Lord. 

Who casts his bread upon the deep, 

The waif again may see ; 
But I prefer my loaves to keep 

Safe under lock and key. 

The starving wretch may pine and die^ 

With curses on my head ; 
Yet he's as many hands as I, 

Then prithee why less bread ? 

No, Selfs the sum of all the creeds 
Mankind have ever known ; 

And he is lord o'er wants and needs 
Who lives for self alone ! 



THE DESTROYER SUPPLIANT. 

Y so, no doubt — why, look you, if Macbeth 
With only one foul murder on his soul 
Could sleep no more, though lapped in softest down, 
Nor ever smile again but just such smiles 
As pain enforces, or galvanic art 
Wrings from the ghastly pallor of the dead ; 
How should this monster, whose lorn victims far 
Outnumber all the breaths he ever drew 
From his first birth-gasp, hope to close his eyes 
For one brief moment's slumber, or cajole 
His cheek with other than sardonic joy ? 
Turn where he may, his nostril cannot shun 
The taint of blood in all the general air ; 
And not a wind that visits him but wreaks 
On his quick ear a hell of human groans. 

For him whose hand first stained the shuddering 
earth 
With life's most sacred crimson, never more 
Was there to be or peace with outward foes. 
Or amnesty of conscience from within. 
323 



324 THE DESTROYER SUPPLIANT. 

Most meet it is, then, that this Cain of Cains, 
Whose crimes have drenched a continent in gore 
Sluiced from innumerable fraternal hearts, 
Should see a foe in every human face. 
In every hand a scourge, in death itself 
No refuge from the Nemesis that haunts 
The guilty soul through asons of despair. 

While stands he lifting his red hands to heaven 
For strength to consummate his awful will 
On her who bore him, crowned his petted youth 
And faithless manhood with her richest gifts 
(To find, at last, as Agrippina found, 
Herself \\\it mother of her deadliest foe !) — 
Athwart the whole broad land, from sea to sea, 
And upward from the dwelling of the palm 
By sunny shores and islands ever green. 
To the bleak mountains, at whose snowy paps 
Are nursed the infant rivers that amaze 
Ocean himself with their majestic port — 
From every city, village, hamlet, grange. 
The voice of lamentation, day and night, 
For loved and lost ones lifts its hopeless wail. 
And hark ! from Europe's overcrowded realms 
The moan of famished millions, from whose hands 
The iron will of this grim suppliant 
Withholds the means whereby in squalid dens 
The meagre crust by patient toil is won. 
And hark again ! the burden of that cry 



THE DESTROYER SUPPLIANT 325 

His own gaunt slaves, in awful earnestness, 
Press on his helpless horror : Give us Bread ! 

Oh man of blood ! oh thruster of the hilt 
Into the grasp of frenzy ! God forbid 
That we should curse thee for its bitter wounds ; 
Remembering whose is vengeance, and withal, 
That they who take, " shall perish with the sword ! " 



GIGANTOMACHIA BALTIMORENSIS. 



UPER in urbe Monumentorum 
Erat conventus Intrepidorum, 
Qui nominarent, manu aut ore, 
Unum e pluribus, antique more, 
ToUere sceptrum qualuor annis. 
Alba qua domus stat Jonathanis. 



Multse, reipsa, tunc erant partes 
Suis faventes, multaeque artes ! 
Cassius, inquit hie, Marcius, ille, 
Noster est dux inter homines mille ; 
Tertius, se judice, nuUus aequalis 
Gigantis esset occidentaHs ; 
S?epe in ore dum erat Buchanus, 
Inclytus ccelebs ac Pennsylvanus. 

Jungitur pugna tum viribus totis, 
Quisque pro suo, verbis et votis ; 
Omnibus, tamen, post omnia furta, 
Triduo manet victoria incerta ; 
326 



GIGANTOMACHIA BALTIMORENSIS. '^2'J 

Palmaque cara, tam viridis visu, 
Cum fere adepta, abripitur risu. 
Denique cunctis, nunc defatigatis 
Ictibus multis receptis et latis, 
Subito Stella, splendidior sole, 
Albis de Montibus magna cum mole 
Surgens ad polum, ministrat lumen, 
Undique radios spargens ut numen ! 

Illico omnes — En ! omen benign um ! 
Ecce Mars ipse ! victrixque signunr. . 
Sub quo bellantes certe vincemus, 
Si nosmetipsos viros praebemus ; 
Agmina tam profjigantes Whiggorum, 
Spoliis onusta Intrepidorum, 
Hostium ut in exitu certaminis 
Macula vae I non erit liquaminis ! 

NoN Marc. 



NOTES. 



PAGE 1 6. 
Monument Mountain is a remarkable precipice on the con- 
fines of Stockbridge and Barrington, from whose summit all 
Berkshire is visible, from Greyloch on the north to Taconic in 
the south. 

PAGE 28. 
Jonathan Edwards was the second pastor of the Stockbridge 
Church for nearly seven years, having been called thence to 
the presidency of Princeton College, January, 1758. The house 
in which he wrote his famous treatise on the " Freedom of the 
Will," etc., etc., is still standing, apparently untouched by the 
frosts of time. 

PAGE 114. 
Their Ktibleh, or the place to which they look whilst per- 
forming their holy ceremonies, is that part of the heavens in 
which the sun rises, and toward it they turn the faces of their 
dead. — Layard's Nineveh, Vol. 1 (Yezedis). 

PAGE 115. 
"While they were yet, it may be, about a hundred and 
fifty miles from the Indian town, a little before break of day, 

329 



330 NOTES. 

when the whole crew were in a dead sleep, one of these women 
took up a resolution to imitate the action of Jael r.pon Siseia ; 
and being where she had not her own life secured by any law 
unto her, she thought slie was not forbidden by any law to 
take away the life of the inunlerers by whom her child had 
been butchered." — Cotton Malhers Ala^tialia Christi, 



PAGE T22. 

" This village (Zinzenam) has its name from an extraordi- 
naiy circumstance that once happened in these parts. A 
shower of rain fell, which was not properly of the nature of 
rain-, as it did not run upon the ground, but remained very 
light, having scarce the weight of feathers, of a beautiful 
white color, like flour." — Bruce's Travels in Abyssinia. 

See also " Cloud Crystals," etc. Edited by a Lady. D. 
Appleton & Co., 1864. 

PAGE 138. 

Lines read at the dedication of the Soldiers' Monument, at 
Stockbridge, Mass., Oct. 17, 1866, If my memory does not 
err, the little town furnished twenty-eight volunteers, several 
of whom never returned from the terrible conflict. It was 
well represented also in the Revolution, both at Bunker Hill 
and Bennington. 

PAGE 162. 

Thus death reigns in all the portions of our time. The 
Autumn with its fruit provides disorders for us, and Winter's 
cold turns them into sharp diseases ; and the Spring brings 
flowers to strew our hearse ; and the Summer gives green turf 
and brambles to bind upon our graves. — Jeremy Taylor. 



NOTES. 331 

PAGE 214. 

Proem to Centennial Echoes, Lee, Mass., Sept., 1877. 

When the continental march of silvan destruction, wliich 
began at Plymouth in 1620, reached this far inland valley, it 
must have presented a scene unsurpassed for beauty in the 
whole temperate zone. It seems formed on just the rigiit 
scale to satisfy the taste of a lover of nature, to whom the 
sublime in scenery, is not an indispensable requisite to its 
perfect enjoyment. If to the simple inhabitants the leafy 
world around them ever suggested any artificial change in its 
conformation, they were utterly destitute of all mechanical 
appliances for effecting it. The landscape, therefore, re- 
mained year after year, just as it had existed for untold ages. 
Spring and Summer draped it, as of old, in their green man- 
tle ; Autumn, in vesture more gorgeous than ever adorned the 
tiring-chamber of kings ; and Winter folded in its gracious 
ermine the latent life in death so soon to rejoice in another 
vernal resurrection. From lateral ridge to ridge all was one 
unbroken forest, save where the beneficent river had blest its 
dusky children with treeless intervals, to which even their 
destitution of the proper instrumental means could give the 
semblance of agricultural life. 

Into this primitive solitude came our hardy ancestors some 
seven score years ago, bringing with them the wants and 
habits of civilized society ; and if perchance they also brought 
a taste for natural beauty, it must have been smothered or 
quite extinguished by the hard necessities of their surround- 
ings. For, to the pioneer, bread is especially the staff of life ; 
and to win it from the wilderness, his axe must first dispel its 
" boundless contiguity of shade," and let the rain and sunshine 
find free access to the dark, dank soil, never glorified by the 
golden footprints of Ceres. So the primitive beauty of the 
Berkshire Hills was obliged to give place to the stern neces- 



332 NOTES. 

sities of the resolute pioneers, who established in the heart of 
the Housatonic Valley the famous Indian Mission, of which 
old Stockbridge became the central point. 

In the verses which I shall have the honor to read, 1 have 
sought to sketch merely the three local aspects above indi- 
cated : namely, the aboriginal silvan beauty ; the blotches 
and blemishes, the rawness, roughness, and general disfigure- 
ment, of what I venture to call the Stump Age ; and, lastly, 
the loveliness that now smiles upon us from every side, as if 
our Alma Mater were conscious of her peerless charms. 
How much these may be heightened, and what new one;- 
added, during the lapse of another century of continued im- 
provement under the fostering care of LAUREL II ILL, Fern 
Cliff * and similar associations throughout the county, the 
eye of imagination only can now dimly discern. When village 
and hamlet and isolated farm-house shall all have been 
touched by the wand of refined taste, our Berkshire will be so 
charming, that the mere thought of its coming beauty makes 
one feel that he was born too early, and wish, with Franklin, 
that he might be permitted to revisit his native land after 
each hundred years' slumber in its maternal bosom. 

* Chartered societies for ornamenting the respective villages. They 
extend the public walks, and plant trees along them each season. 



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